Copa America: Lionel Messi ready for crowning glory

Lionel Messi will bid to gild his legacy as the greatest footballer of his generation here Sunday by ending Argentina’s 23-year wait for a major title in a dream final against holders Chile in the Copa America Centenario.

For Messi’s many millions of admirers, the five-time world footballer of the year has already achieved enough in his glittering career to be considered in the same bracket as Pele and Diego Maradona.

Yet the only hole in the Barcelona superstar’s CV -- a major tournament title with Argentina -- is invariably, and somewhat unfairly, cited as a justification to delay his elevation to football’s pantheon.

That could all change on Sunday before a sell-out crowd of 81,000 at East Rutherford’s MetLife Stadium, the home of the NFL’s New York Giants, when Argentina face the Chileans in a rematch of last year’s Copa America final. It is the third final in as many years for Messi and his teammates, who suffered agonizing defeats in the 2014 World Cup final against Germany and to the Chileans on penalties in Santiago last year.

On each occasion, Messi has borne the brunt of the backlash from critics in Argentina who trot out a familiar laundry list of grievances. He has no passion. He doesn’t sing the anthem. He doesn’t “feel” the shirt.

Barely a ball had been kicked in this Copa America before Maradona, a regular sniper, accused him of lacking “personality” and “leadership.”

Maradona amped up the rhetoric this week shortly after Argentina booked their place in the final with a 4-0 demolition of the United States.

“We will certainly win on Sunday... and if we don’t win, they shouldn’t come back,” Maradona told an Argentinian television network. Messi is not above being angered by the criticism.

“I get annoyed by the people who attack you without thinking,” he said in a recent interview. “We got to two finals. We didn’t win. What can you do But we got to the final. It’s not like we lost in the last 16.” So far in the United States, Messi has shown no sign of being overburdened by the pressure to end Argentina’s wait for a title. After missing Argentina’s opening group match — a 2-1 win over Sunday’s opponents Chile — he scored an electrifying hat-trick against Panama.