Sao Paulo: The World Cup can only hope that Lionel Messi is leaving his best for last. In the most important World Cup match to date in his epoch-shaping career, football's superstar was neither super nor a star.


Lionel Messi. Pic/AFP 

The four-time world player of the year was a bystander, not a decisive protagonist, for large chunks of Wednesday's semifinal, his first on football's biggest stage. The match dragged on into extra time and then still finished 0-0 in large part because Messi failed to leave his mark on it as he has done on hundreds of others for Barcelona, his club, but not for Argentina, his country that needs him now to step up.