Argentina are preparing to turn a page that has seemed almost impossible to imagine: life after Lionel Messi. As the captain’s final appearance for the national side approaches, the shirt he made inseparable from the Albiceleste will remain, but the team around it must change.
For Lionel Scaloni, the task is not simply to nominate a successor to Messi. No player can reproduce the influence of the No. 10, whose place in Argentina’s story stands alongside Diego Maradona’s. The immediate challenge is to build a side capable of playing with a different centre of gravity, while deciding who can carry a number weighted by that history.
Nico Paz has moved to the front of that discussion. The Como left-footer, born in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, has emerged as Scaloni’s preferred young creator for the first Argentina matches without Messi. He started the friendlies against Bolivia and Burkina Faso, a clear indication that the coach sees him as a possible reference point for the next cycle.
Paz has been used from the right before drifting inside, a role that allows him to connect play through central areas rather than stay fixed on the flank. It is a position familiar to anyone who watched Messi shape Argentina’s attacks, though Paz’s assignment is to establish his own version of it rather than imitate the player departing the stage.
The forthcoming meeting with Benin may offer another glimpse of that transition, particularly if Scaloni brings together the outgoing icon and the emerging playmaker. Franco Mastantuono is also part of the wider conversation around Argentina’s next generation, but Paz currently appears to hold the advantage in the informal race for the No. 10 inheritance.
In the months ahead, Argentina will discover that Messi’s departure is not a vacancy that can be filled in one selection or one friendly. Paz, however, has been handed an early opportunity to show that the post-Messi side can still find imagination between the lines.
