LONDON - Less than half an hour into the marathon semifinal between the Netherlands and Argentina, there was a fearful cracking of heads between Georginio Wijnaldum and Javier Mascherano.
Neither was to blame. They went for the ball and did not see the collision coming. The side of Mascherano's head hit the back of Wijnaldum's shaven skull. Mascherano stumbled for a moment, his eyes wide open but apparently seeing nothing around him.
Then he sagged to the turf and a doctor and other medical workers rushed to him. After all that has been said and written about concussions in sports, this was another moment to stop the play and be very, very circumspect about allowing a player to continue, even if he wanted to.
Mascherano did eventually continue. He succeeded not only in persuading the medical staff that he knew what he was doing; he became arguably the most important and impressive player in the hour that followed, in the 30 minutes of extra time, and then in the dreaded shootout that decided the outcome of the most important contest of Mascherano's career.
Argentina's penalty takers kept a clear head and a clear aim for each of their kicks. Sergio Romero - the Argentine goalkeeper who has spent the past 12 months in limbo, loaned out by his Italian club Sampdoria and virtually unused by Monaco in the French league - became the headline hero with two agile penalty stops, low to his left and high to the right.
But for Romero to get those chances, someone had to ensure that Argentina was still in the game after 120-plus minutes. And for once it wasn't Lionel Messi who was his national team's savior. Messi is the captain, but Mascherano is the leader of Argentina on the field.
They play together on the same club, Barcelona. Messi, again, is usually the story there, and rightly so, given that he is so many times not just the game-winner, but an artist and a compelling sight for sore eyes.
Not this time, however. Not during this tight, at times numbing match in the teeming rain of São Paulo. Messi had his moments, but it was a defenders' night, a contest of stubborn resilience and of one team's doing all it could to cancel out the strengths of the other while still playing within the rules of the game.
In that type of contest, Mascherano's warrior-like mentality, his selfless running, covering, tackling and tenacity come to the forefront. For his national team, he plays as a shield to the defense in a midfield role that calls for vision, constant vigilance and the courage at times to put his body (and yes, his head) in the way of opposing attacks.
The block tackle that Mascherano made to deprive Arjen Robben of a scoring chance in the final seconds of the first 90 minutes was arguably the interception of the entire tournament, which, so far, has run to 62 games.
Robben's speed had carried him beyond Argentina's defense on the left. He was about to pull the trigger and shoot from close range. As he lifted his leg to make that shot, Mascherano dashed across from Robben's right, made up the two or three yards and slid in to get his own foot to the ball first, diverting it away from the Dutchman in the nick of time.
Clearly, Mascherano was seeing things well enough. His judgment could not be faltered. His defenders had lost sight of Robben, his goalkeeper was frozen to his line, and everything depended on Mascherano's timing that interception to perfection. A fraction either way, and he risked making contact with the Dutchman, who is known for his, shall we say, unsure footing in the penalty box.
There were times during that long, drawn-out stalemate that concentration was the key to everything. And who was the most concentrated Argentine, who was making sure every colleague was alert and awake to the danger of switching off? Javier Mascherano, the man Argentines know as 'El Jefecito,' or The Little Chief.
He isn't any longer the designated captain, because Messi, leading by example, is entitled to that honor. Messi, however, is truly a passive example on the field, a player who is tackled rather than the one doing the tackling, a man whose antenna is tuned to producing moments of imagination, beauty and decisive goal scoring.
Argentina depends upon him, perhaps too much so. When the goals dry up, when the opposing team is as concentrated on stopping him as the Netherlands was on Wednesday, he can become as isolated as any other player, almost impotent, which is not something we say about Messi very often.
When that does happen, others are required to step to the plate. A keeper like Romero who guesses right two times out of four in the penalty decider. Defenders like Pablo Zabaleta, another who shook off head injury, though in his case a bloodied mouth. Zabaleta stuck like glue to the Dutch wingers, except in the crucial 90th minute when Robben danced free.
At that moment came the timely intervention of Mascherano. Seeing him at the heart of Argentina's defiance this week takes me back to October 2008, when Diego Maradona began his brief and ultimately failed attempt to manage the national team to victory at the last World Cup.
'My team,' Maradona said when he accepted the challenge, 'is Mascherano and 10 others.'
The 10 included Messi, whom Maradona saw as the individual superstar (in Diego's own image). Whatever else Maradona got right or wrong in his 20 months in charge, his instinct was right about Mascherano. A team can be built around a special player, but there are times when it needs leadership to gut out the contest.
Post By http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/11/sports/soccer/if-messi-is-argentinas-star-then-mascherano-is-the-glue.html
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