Messi next: Five best players to lose their first World Cup final and get another chance

Ian Watson
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Lothar Matthaus, Lionel Messi and Ronaldo all lost the first World Cup final they played.

Some of the greatest ever players suffered defeat in their first World Cup final. For others, like Johan Neeskens, they fared no better second time around.

Here are the five best players who, like Lionel Messi, got another chance in a World Cup final after losing their first…

 

Franz Beckenbauer 
Der Kaiser appeared in his first World Cup in 1966, aged 20, when he played every game while helping West Germany reach the final, where they were beaten by England. With four goals in the tournament, the centre-back finished as third-highest scorer.

Beckenbauer helped West Germany semi-avenge that defeat to England by knocking them out in the 1970 World Cup. He dislocated his shoulder in the semi-final but played on, only for Italy to triumph 4-3 after extra-time.

But it all came right on home soil in 1974 for Beckenbauer, the skipper of the victorious West Germany side. He was the first captain to lift the current iteration of the trophy after beating Johan Cruyff’s Netherlands.

Not content with that, Beckenbauer became the first man to captain and coach a nation to World Cup glory, with Mario Zagallo and Didier Deschamps later replicating the achievement.

 

Johan Neeskens
Neeskens was on the losing side when Beckenbauer lifted the World Cup in 1974 at the expense of Cruyff and the Netherlands’ Total Football.

Neeskens scored five in the tournament, including a second-minute penalty in the final before a West Germany player had touched the ball in Munich. But the hosts equalised with a penalty of their own before Gerd Muller scored the winner.

Netherlands were back in the final four years later, minus Cruyff, but the outcome was the same. Neeskens was one of eight players to play in both finals, this one lost to another host, Argentina, 3-1 after extra-time.

Karl-Heinz Rummenigge
Rummenigge had no more joy than Neeskens or the Dutch. He played in two World Cup finals, 1982 and 1986, losing both of them.

A knee injury stopped the reigning European Player of the Year from playing to his full potential but Rummenigge still rattled in a hat-trick against Chile in the group stage was he scored a crucial goal to see off France in the semi-final. But a tired West Germany side were beaten 3-1 by Italy in the final.

The 1986 tournament brought down the curtain on Rummenigge’s international career, which ended with a goal in a 3-2 final defeat to Diego Maradona’s Argentina.


Lothar Matthaus
Matthaus gained revenge for West Germany, if not Rummenigge, when he skippered his nation to glory at Italia ’90, beating Maradona’s Argentina 1-0 in a rotten final.

That was Matthaus’ second final appearance, having served under Rummenigge’s captaincy in 1986. It was his job to man-mark Maradona, who wrote of Matthaus: “He is the best rival I have ever had. I guess that’s enough to define him.”

A 20-year, 150-cap international career helps too. Assuming Messi plays on Sunday – imagine if he doesn’t – he will break Matthaus’ record of 25 World Cup finals appearances.

 

Ronaldo
After what happened to Ronaldo in the build-up to his first World Cup final in 1998 – he was in the 1994 squad but did not play – it would be entirely understandable if Argentina cocooned Messi in cotton wool before Sunday afternoon,

Even those measures wouldn’t have prevented the drama around R9 in Paris. Many theories abound but, in his words, he suffered a ‘convulsion’ in his hotel room, which initially saw Brazil leave him out of their XI for the final against France.

Ronaldo wasn’t having it, and armed with medical test results, he insisted on playing. He was a passenger in a 3-0 defeat for Brazil.

Mercifully, he was fit to try again in 2002, despite missing the entire qualification campaign with a knee injury. This time, he won the Golden Boot with eight goals, including a brace in the final against Germany.

Read more: A totally unscientific ranking of every 2022 WC team from least to most favourite

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