Argentina, we should remind ourselves, are unbeaten in this year’s World Cup.  But it doesn’t feel like it – they are under the most exquisite pressure ahead of tonight’s game against Croatia, and the spotlight falls, as it inevitably must, on the head of the world’s most gifted footballer.

We talk to Argentinian journalist Marcela Mora Y Araujo about how Messi cannot change who he is, the running stats that show he ran less without the ball than Hugo Lloris and Kasper Schmeichel in the first round of games, and the apocalyptic vista of dropping the main man.

Plus there’s Pippo Inzaghi’s owl head, the Romanovs were asking for it, Roy’s regrets, Kencat Goldthwaite and Messi’s Mammy.

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