Di Maria or Messi: Who is the true hero behind Argentina's glories?

Months before the World Cup kicked off, several Argentina players urged Di Maria to reverse his retirement and join the tournament. The winger would not budge.

Argentina named their preliminary squad in May 2026, and the veteran's name was gone for good.

Lionel Scaloni later revealed that his staff had tried to coax Di Maria back, even just for a farewell match in front of the fans. He refused.

Spanish newspaper AS quoted Scaloni as saying: "We asked him to come and say goodbye to his fans. He has gone, and there is no way to convince him. We tried, but his decision is final."

The coach added: "He retired as a winner, and as one of the best footballers in our history."

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 The final against Spain served up attacking numbers that may be the worst in Argentina's history in World Cup finals. Across the 90 minutes of regulation time, the team failed to register a single shot or goal attempt.

Argentina managed just two shots in the whole match, both off target, against 20 for Spain. Twelve of those found the target. Spain also dominated possession, 65% to 35%.

Things grew more complicated after Enzo Fernández was sent off in the 90+3rd minute, leaving Argentina to play out extra time with ten men. Emiliano Martínez stood tall with 11 saves over the course of the match, a clear measure of the defensive pressure his side were under.

Those numbers make the 2026 final Argentina's worst in attacking terms during the Lionel Messi era, even compared to the loss to Germany in the 2014 World Cup final.

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Di Maria's record in finals fuels the ongoing debate following the 2026 defeat.

He missed the 2014 World Cup final with a muscle tear picked up against Belgium in the quarter-final, and Argentina lost to Germany. A year later he limped off during the 2015 Copa America final, which Chile settled on penalties. In 2016 he took to the pitch for the Centenary final while short of full fitness, and the defeat played out exactly the same way.

Fully fit for the 2021 Copa America final, Di Maria scored the winner against Brazil. He struck again in the 2022 World Cup final against France, then started the 2024 Copa America final as Argentina saw off Colombia.

The 2026 World Cup told a different story. Having retired from international football, Di Maria played no part, and the tournament ended in another final defeat.

The pattern is stark. Argentina lost every final Di Maria missed or entered short of full fitness, and won every final he played at his best.

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Di Maria's value went beyond simply turning up for finals. His name became a byword for scoring on the biggest occasions. He netted the winner in the final of the Beijing 2008 Olympics against Nigeria, struck the title-clinching goal in the 2021 Copa America final against Brazil, then added another in the 2022 World Cup final against France. Among Argentina's players in the modern era, only Lionel Messi can match such a record.

On a personal level, he ended his international career after 145 matches, scoring 31 goals and providing 32 assists. He also sits second on the list of players with the most Copa America appearances in history, with 28, behind Messi.

Speaking to Infobaepreviously, the player revealed that he continued to take medication for a spell because of the psychological toll of the defeats in the 2014, 2015 and 2016 finals, despite everything he went on to achieve.

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The coaching staff never found a settled replacement for Di Maria's role during the 2026 World Cup. Scaloni tried more than one option on the left flank. Thiago Almada, Giovani Lo Celso and Nicolas Gonzalez all got a look, before he tore up the shape entirely in the final, switching from 4-3-3 to 4-4-2 and shifting Alexis Mac Allister to the left wing. It laid bare the ongoing hunt for a formula to cover the retired star's absence.

Members of the coaching staff, quoted in media reports, pointed to another gap. Di Maria led within the group and calmed the players in decisive moments, an influence you can't measure by numbers alone.

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The statistical correlation is strong, yet blaming the 2026 defeat on Di Maria's absence, and inflating it to downplay Messi's role, oversimplifies the picture. The 2018 World Cup proves the point. Di Maria was present and physically fit, but France knocked Argentina out in the round of 16 amid technical problems and a clear decline in the team's balance.

Argentina did not win in 2021, 2022 and 2024 on the back of Di Maria alone. Emiliano Martinez produced decisive saves, Lautaro Martinez and Julian Alvarez supplied the goals, and Scaloni brought stability from the moment he took the job.

Direct factors shaped the 2026 final too. Enzo Fernandez saw red, Lisandro Martinez went off injured early, and Spain proved rock solid, arriving on a long unbeaten run with clean sheets in five consecutive knockout matches.

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Lionel Messi's numbers tell an entirely different story. The Argentina captain remained the single biggest factor in the Tango dancers' results, decisive whether Di Maria featured or not. Their fortunes hinged far more on the state of the system as a whole than on the absence of one man.

At the 2026 World Cup, Messi, aged 39, delivered one of his finest individual tournaments. He scored 8 goals and provided 4 assists in 8 matches.

His tally climbed to 21 goals, making him the second-highest scorer in World Cup history behind Kylian Mbappe (22).

No player before him had provided at least one assist in six different editions of the tournament (2006, 2010, 2014, 2018, 2022 and 2026), nor scored in seven consecutive knockout-stage matches.

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These numbers confirm that Argentina's collective decline in the final never touched their captain's individual level. The cumulative impact leans in Messi's favour. Compare the two players' international careers and one thing is clear: Messi holds a significant advantage in matches, goals and assists, and he led Argentina to three World Cup finals in 2014, 2022 and 2026, an achievement no player in the history of the tournament can match.

Argentina's troubles in finals did not begin with Di Maria's absence either. Messi lost the 2007 Copa America final to Brazil by three goals to nil, a full year before Di Maria's first international appearance in 2008.

The difficulty of settling finals existed before the veteran winger joined the national team, and it continued afterwards for reasons that go beyond any single player.

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