Croatian prodigy Josko Gvardiol reduced to rubble by the timeless genius Lionel Messi

Josko Gvardiol has always said that if he wasn’t a footballer, he would have followed his father into the trade but the ability of the 20-year-old RB Leipzig defender has been so glaring at this World Cup that it is impossible to imagine he was born to anything else but the beautiful game.

However there are prodigies in this world - and then there are genii from another planet entirely. Young Gvardiol met one at Lusail Stadium, and the lesson may burn for years.

The most poignant sight in Croatia’s humbling was Luka Modric, their all-time great, watching the final minutes of this final World Cup game from the bench, running his hands through his hair and shaking his head, having been substituted in the 81st minute.

But the most arresting one was Gvardiol, until last night (Tuesday) perhaps the best defender of the whole tournament, being slowly but surely humbled and dismantled. “Levels”, they say, and the young centre back discovered that, for all his talents, Lionel Messi is like nothing else he had ever faced in the game.

At halftime, already 2-0 down, he ripped the protective mask that he has worn throughout the finals from his face, a symbolic moment: there was no protection and no hiding here in Lusail.

He had generally played well during those first 45 minutes, Argentina’s goals coming after errors by his centre-back partner, Dejan Lovren, but a few moments of untidiness - not seen before from him at the finals - had crept in, perhaps because he was having to strive so hard to follow Messi round the pitch, while still trying to keep one eye on the electric Julian Alvarez.

In the second half, things started to deteriorate when Messi played a one-two to get round him and almost score with a 57th-minute shot and then he tried too hard to reimpose himself - taking the ball on a run into Argentina’s half but losing it.

The moment Gvardiol will not forget came in the 68th minute. It was one of those painful ones we all have in life when we are given sudden perspective on our limitations. Messi had the ball on the touchline and Gvardiol, with young man’s machismo, tried to make a statement by jumping in to try to rob him. Only Messi just feinted and whisked the ball away. Gvardiol pursued him all the way into the area but Messi got across him, stood him up, turned him on the other side and then cut back for Julian to score his second.

Perhaps most painfully, when Gvardiol closed in to challenge and try to make his significant size advantage tell, Messi even managed - and who knows how? - to barge him away and beat him for strength.

It had started so differently, with Croatia outplaying Argentina during the opening 30 minutes and Gvardiol full of confidence. There he was, dummying Alvarez to pass inside to Modric. There he went, putting his foot on the ball to draw in Argentinians, then dinking a ball through to Andrej Kramaric.

Once, he even stepped past Messi in a subversion of their expected roles and there was another moment when Alvarez closed as he received the ball and seemed to be under pressure. Gvardiol shaped to go left and Alvarez went to press on that side - then he dropped his shoulder and went right instead, passing the ball out to the other flank.

What makes Gvardiol so attractive to the Premier League big clubs as well as Real Madrid and Bayern Munich - who all covet him - is his amalgam of physique, classic defending and modern ball-playing ability. Watched closely, what you see in Gvardiol are not big, show-off plays but a million brilliant small decisions. When to drop, when to go tight, when to put his foot on the ball, when to drive out with it - he makes them all, flawlessly, pretty much. At 20, he leads - pointing teammates into position and playing the ball, moving to space, and demanding the ball again.

He blocks, he heads, his speed is good and his scanning skills are those of a midfielder. It is the position he used to play as a youth at Dinamo Zagreb, when he was nicknamed ‘Little Pep’ - not just for his style but because his surname is the Croatian equivalent of “Guardiola.”

By 17 he was in Dinamo’s first team and already a sensation, yet still lived with his parents on the fifth floor of a Zagreb skyscraper, where on his bedroom wall was pinned a sheet of paper. Underlined was the title: ‘Josko Gvardiol - Child Prodigy’.

Written for him by one of Tihomir’s friends, it was a blueprint for life, with reminders about discipline, diet, training properly and working hard. Circled were the words “Plan A, no plan B” and pretty much everything in Gvardiol’s young career had gone to plan until he arrived in Lusail. And met Messi.

There are levels and a talent of Gvardiol’s class with learn and come again - but will never forget the lesson.

-The Times

Originally published as Croatian prodigy Josko Gvardiol reduced to rubble by the timeless genius Lionel Messi