Maradona scored two goals against England in four minutes: the first involved a handball; the second, they say, was a work of art. Cheating and artistry. Perhaps there is no better way to describe Maradona: genius and excess in the same person.

From that moment on, Maradona, already a hero, became a sort of earthly god. One of those on Olympus who displayed failings far more human than heavenly. ‘El Diego’ was a Greek god – with a small ‘g’ – who publicly revealed what we try to sweep under the carpet. He was a leader of the unseemly: of that which we all possess, from which no one can entirely distance themselves and which, nevertheless, we reject.

Maradona showed us, in all its starkness, just how contradictory we can be. Diego, the man of contrasts, of light and shade. He blended all the colours of the universe of emotions, of loyalties and betrayals, of loves and hates. He possessed the virtue of being that which we both admire and reject at the same time. Something that only those figures can produce who captivate us even through their faults. So much ours, so much his. A man who lived like a god, but suffered like a man.

Then Messi appeared.

He played like no one else, but it wasn’t enough. His physique was not one of excess but of self-care. His life seemed organised. He didn’t need to be constantly at loggerheads with anyone. For years, Argentines found reasons to mistrust him: he didn’t sing the national anthem, he had grown up in Barcelona, he didn’t shout, he lacked character. The accusation was extraordinary: the world’s best player was being criticised for things that had almost nothing to do with soccer.

He was expected to be like Diego.

Freud understood that a crowd becomes a mass when something takes the place of the Ideal for everyone. Maradona had occupied that place so fiercely that whoever came after him would have to measure up to him. Messi wasn’t just playing against Brazil, Germany or France. He was also playing against a dead man. And, as we know, it’s very difficult to beat the dead.

He was bound to lose. He lost finals, he cried, he retired from the national team and then returned. The hero who wasn’t a hero. Until he won the Copa América and redeemed himself in the eyes of his people. Then came the 2022 World Cup. After the match against the Netherlands, something small happened: Messi glanced to one side and said, ‘What are you looking at, asshole?’

Argentina went wild.

The silent hero had finally spoken in the language of ‘Diegote’.

People invent idols to say something about themselves that they would otherwise be unable to express. Miller argues that identification is, in itself, a social bond. Perhaps an idol does precisely that: it unites millions.

* Psychoanalyst member of WAP and EOL. Practices psychoanalysis in Uruguay