Lionel Messi and Argentina losing sleep as Uruguay loom at Copa América 2015 | Jonath

[Jonathan Wilson]

Paraguay’s 2-2 draw with Argentina has got Lionel Messi worried as his team strive to lift a trophy they last won 22 years agoAfter Argentina’s 2-2 draw with Paraguay Lionel Messi could not sleep. He roamed the corridors of the squad’s base in La Serena, turning over and over in his mind what had happened, how Argentina had managed to turn a position of dominance and a 2-0 lead into a point that places enormous pressure on them in Tuesday’s Copa América game against Uruguay.
At Sunday’s team meeting he was unusually vocal. That in itself seems telling. At the World Cup last year he was the silent captain, a distant, enigmatic figure whose armband seemed to denote his primacy but not any gifts of leadership. Before extra-time in the last-16 tie against Belgium he was the last to join the huddle; by the time he got there, Javier Mascherano was already giving a team talk. This Messi, the re-engaged, refocused, fitter Messi of 2015, the Messi whose cheekbones bulge from his face, whose genius has somehow found an even higher level, perhaps now feels ready for a responsibility that last year he was willing to leave to others.
Related: Chile 3-3 Mexico | Copa América Group A match report
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