How do we remember what we remember?
How do we forget what we forget?
Most of the time, our memory works on its own, without telling us why you kept that snapshot or this scene, and why you got rid of others.
How will we remember the World Cup final then?
How will we remember the story of Messi with Argentina?
Is what our minds will keep is really the truth?
What is the truth originally?
This question has incapacitated neuroscientists and psychologists throughout history.
Until now, most of them believe that human memory remains an unsolvable mystery.
In fact, AI is getting better than humans at predicting how human memory works, and it can tell you which images or scenes your consciousness will hold, even if it doesn't know you at all.
(1)
Of course, this drives them crazy.
We are talking about scientists, of course;
Because it means there is some observable pattern, a reference point to which to go back and measure everything.
It means that there are absolute truths about human memory that AI can perceive, measure and experience, only they are not as intelligent.
Messi's artificial intelligence
Lionel Messi (AFP)
The greatest irony of all is that while we treat what we remember as facts, the closest answer scientists have come to is that it is a matter of imagination, for example. What makes some words more memorable than others is our ability to imagine them in pictures or stories.
(2)
This is a better answer, of course, but it is also still ambiguous, because it leads us to another question.
What is fantasy?
Can we think what no one has thought before?
Can we imagine a mental image out of nowhere?
Or is the whole matter nothing more than reproducing the stories and tales that we have accumulated throughout our lives?
Another confusing question, but one that leads us to part of the answer.
What we remember depends, in whole or in part, on the narratives that influenced our experiences the most.
Narratives presented to us by movies, novels, songs, customs, traditions and life situations.
Yes, we realize that we asked a lot of questions to reach an obvious answer;
Man is bound to repeat history in some way.
This is not new and does not require psychologists, neuroscientists or artificial intelligence.
The problem here is that these axioms have not been realized after the World Cup final, and this is what made us raise them in the first place.
Any child is well aware that the most influential memories of Messi's career with his country were associated with failure more than any other feeling;
Crying moments, bowed heads, fallen shoulders, arms resting on waists, comparisons with Maradona, feelings of helplessness and emptiness.
NEVER GIVE UP!
2014: Losing Finalists to Germany
2022: World Cup CHAMPIONS 🏆
Congratulations Lionel Andres Messi.
pic.twitter.com/K7J17kKtCC
- Usher Komugisha (@UsherKomugisha) December 18, 2022
The moment Messi raised the cup was preceded by a lot of suffering, but for understandable reasons that moment erased it;
That picture is of Messi proud of himself, looking at the crowd with a hard, rigid face, unusually, while the Emir of Qatar imitates him with the famous Arab Bisht.
For understandable reasons, too, the audience needed a moment like that, steeped in symbolism, that makes the coronation scene different from any previous version, in which the Arab audience specifically feels that the man has become closer to them than ever before.
In those moments, our brains are working as hard as they can to create new storage capacity, and scenes are imprinted in our memories, replacing other scenes that have been imposed on them.
The difference here is that many people wanted to remember this moment.
In fact, this is what they have wanted since the 2010 World Cup and never got it, and when they finally got what they wanted, their minds didn't need guidance in the moment, and their task seemed as easy as it could be.
I'm probably in the minority here but I thought Lionel Messi wearing a bisht was a nice touch.
Bishts are given to Arab warriors after a victory in battle or to royalty…Messi just won the greatest battle of them all and confirmed himself as the king of football.
pic.twitter.com/wP9FvZiUAw
— Zach Lowy (@ZachLowy) December 19, 2022
Replacing memories of pain and suffering in favor of memories of victory and coronation does not require a conscious decision, and this is precisely its danger.
Perhaps for this reason, man was forced to repeat the history of his ancestors.
Because he only remembered one scene from each trip they took, or because his memory is biased in turn, or because those victories were mixed with lies, and some of these lies were intentional, because his predecessors wanted to turn the randomness of life into a tight, silent story without gaps.
This is exactly what we will attempt to argue;
The lies told by many, led by Maradona himself, on the way to that moment.
Hug a 12-year-old
The first scene that you missed from the World Cup final ironically did not happen in the World Cup final, but rather preceded it twelve years ago, specifically in the quarter-finals of the 2010 edition in South Africa between Argentina and Germany, when Diego Armando Maradona was coach of Messi and his companions.
That iconic moment in which Maradona coaches his successor is what determined Argentina's relationship with Messi for the entire following decade.
After the match that ended with the crushing and humiliation of Argentina by a clean four, Maradona went to greet his players, including Messi of course, but all the pictures that were taken for this embrace did not show any emotion on the part of the latter, on the contrary, he avoided eye contact with his coach, shrugged his face, and did not move a muscle. One in his body to receive Maradona's arms, as if he was embracing him against his will.
All teams lose in the World Cup, and all the great players have moments they want to forget, but perhaps the main reason for Messi's body language in that moment was the fact that he knew exactly what was going to happen after the match.
A few days before the tournament, journalist Paul Hayward of the English Guardian announced a shocking surprise.
Maradona did not want to include Diego Milito, the Champions League champion in Inter Mourinho's trilogy, and the best striker in Europe at that moment, because he was not impressed with the Portuguese coach's playing style.
(3) In fact, Inter had four Argentine stars among its ranks in the starting line-up that achieved the treble, including Scaloni's current assistant Walter Samuel, historical leader Javier Zanetti, and Esteban Cambiasso, the best player in the tournament, and Maradona did not want to include any of them.
Of course, no one paid attention to Howard's shocking surprise, neither in Argentina nor abroad, simply because Maradona's assumption of the leadership of the national team itself was not a shocking surprise;
This is a man without experience and little experience, and he has not been on the line for the last 13 years, and his information about training is less than your information about the Slovenian league, and despite that, he took charge of one of the most talented generations of Argentina, to lead him in the World Cup.
If the Argentines saw this as justified, how could Milito's exclusion shock them?
(4)
On the day of the match against Germany, the Argentine squad caused a lot of angry grunts, but that was the least of it;
Just angry grunts.
The man is treated like a god in Argentina and abroad, so he can field five strikers and a lone midfielder against Germany in the World Cup quarter-finals without worrying about the reaction of the press, the media and the fans.
Mueller, of course, opened the recording, because Maradona did not fail to insult him before the meeting at the press conference, after he refused to share the hall, claiming that he thought he was a ball-gatherer on the field, and swore in front of the whole world that he had never heard of him before.
Forget about this attempt to insult because - despite its lowliness - it is not the worst thing in the scene, but rather the fact that there was a man who was going to face Germany in the 2010 World Cup quarter-finals, and hours before the match he had not heard of Mueller before.
(5)
Stand for a moment and imagine the degree of blindness with which the whole world should have dealt with the situation, to turn it into another nice joke of Maradona's well-known jokes, such as the time he pointed to the Nigerians with obscene fingers from the stands, so the scene automatically turned into a sincere expression of madness, passion, spirit and all these terms Which was decimated by the vulgarity of the man and his audience, and many shared the shot under idiotic headlines trying to claim depth along the lines of: “This is real football!”
Now go back to the hug and try to imagine what Messi had in mind at that moment;
Maradona is not only an Argentine legend, but rather he is closer to the embodiment of identity for Argentines, and some of them worship him in a literal sense, to the point of establishing a church bearing his name that considers his date of birth as Christmas, followed by tens of thousands, while Messi does not represent much to Argentines at that moment.
That was his first full real experience with the national team, while Maradona was the national team, he was the state, and he was the people.
(6) (7)
So when the usual guillotine was erected after the defeat, the expected result was that it squinted, falling on Messi's neck instead of his coach, simply because he was an easy target at that moment, and escaping from the truth that the Argentines did not want to admit;
Maradona publicly insulted their country's national team, with the utmost recklessness and insolence, and with premeditation.
This was probably what Messi thought of the moment of the embrace;
The fact that he is about to become a sacrifice to the bloodthirsty masses after the defeat, and the fact that his coach will hide behind him, is nothing but the fact that he was the weakest link in the national team at the level of popularity and masses in Argentina, and the worst thing is that any attempt to defend himself will mean nothing but suicide, hence It all started.
A two-week-old hug
The rolling clip, which was watched by more than two million people from only one account, begins with Gonzalo Montiel taking the final penalty kick, then the lens moves directly to Scaloni, and the following seconds here are worth studying.
As soon as Scaloni appears in the clip, we realize that Montyal has already shot it, and that Argentina has become world champions, because we see the movements of the administrators and members of the coaching staff in the background, but the man remains squinted in focus for a few seconds, his arms crossed on his chest, as if analyzing a complex tactical situation during The match, then a shy smile appears on his face as Rodrigo Barrios, the physical trainer, approaches him, who embraces him warmly, embracing his head, then turns him away from the cameras, shouting in his ears in phrases that no one understands, while Scaloni pats his buttocks nervously.
Then comes Pablo Aimar, the former Valencia star and one of the assistants, to jump on the duo screaming.
Scaloni still avoided eye contact with everyone, with a head looking at the grass below, then withdrew and headed to the bench, trying to control his tears.
He takes a sip of water and then gets up, and at that moment, he breaks down crying, disbelieving what he has just realized.
Surprisingly, it wasn't Scaloni's first shot that way.
After the Croatia match, and during the celebrations, the camera that followed Messi showed the moment he approached his coach, and it was very strange in turn;
Scaloni was standing in almost the same position on the field, and he noticed Messi approaching to congratulate him, but he seemed suspicious that Messi was really heading towards him, so he kept looking in front of him avoiding looking into his eyes, with the same calm expression on his face, until Messi actually embraced him, and then patted his buttocks in the way The same nervousness.
In an audio clip that spread a few days after the final, Hernan Casciari, the Catalan Argentinian who owns the famous “Messi the Dog Man” clip, used a very romantic phrase to describe the coronation scene: “We have never seen a simple man on top of the world.”
(8)
The other Lionel, Lionel Scaloni, was a simple man on top of the world in turn, much simpler than Messi, but the duo share the fact that both were victims of Maradona in some way.
Days later, another clip of Diego appeared before his death in an anonymous press conference publicly insulting Lionel Scaloni, claiming that the Argentines are crazy just for thinking of him as a coach, and that the only World Cup Scaloni can go to is the Motorcycle World Cup.
The last phrase was said amid the laughter of the audience of journalists and correspondents.
(9)
We believe that Diego was not conscious when he made these statements.
Of course, this is always a possibility whenever Maradona talks, but we can't say for sure.
The important thing is that Scaloni was under similar pressure, with a shorter life than that experienced by Messi, because of the man himself;
Which Argentines insist on being the god of football.
In fact, nothing expresses Maradona's power in Argentina other than the fact that he had the audacity to criticize any coach after what he did in 2010. Scaloni is not a brilliant coach, and the criteria for choosing him to lead the national team have a thousand question marks, exactly like his assistants Aimar, Samuel and Ayala, who have had little experience. He accepted these, but even if Scaloni had never kicked a single ball in his life, he would not have come to the point of receiving coaching tips from Maradona, let alone insults.
This is the scene that many missed in that snapshot, which was watched by more than two million people from just one account.
The saddest thing about this scene is that Scaloni himself said before the group stage match with Mexico that Maradona would watch the national team from heaven, and that they were waiting for his inspiration to overcome the difficult situation after losing to Saudi Arabia in the opening match.
This is the degree of Argentine crush in front of the man.
(10)
This is what gives you the feeling that there is another Maradona that everyone is always talking about except for the man who has only spoken and done nonsense since his retirement, as if the real Maradona, who breathed, interacted and spoke every day until his death, is nothing but an expression of another hypothetical value, unrealized in reality, as if His disappointed true version does not satisfy their ambitions.
In fact, we do not think that describing him as "the man" is accurate;
We are talking about a supernatural legal entity, which the Argentines transformed over time, with their full will, into a tyrant, into a corpse that lies on the chest of everyone who is led by the misfortune to play in the national team or train it, and with time, the absurd vicious circle closed on everyone;
The constant hope that this or that will be the next Maradona, then anger and hysteria with the first frustration, mixed with a hidden sense of satisfaction that their imaginary legend has not been scratched by repetition, then settling in that safe, comfortable space until another miserable person comes along with whom they repeat the ball.
With time and successive frustrations across the different generations of Argentina, the Argentines realized that the imaginary picture they kept in their heads about the past was unattainable, and instead of reviewing it, or prompting them to think, they succumbed to the fact that the only role of the present in their lives was to glorify and lament the past. Because time will not produce another Maradona, or rather what they think and imagine about Maradona.
It's all over
The third scene followed Scaloni's scene in seconds, and although it did not appear on the live broadcast, one of the cameras succeeded in capturing it.
Watch it in the next clip, please.
Argentina are world champions, and the first thing Messi thinks of after embracing Paredes is to go to his family in the stands, opening his arms as if he was about to embrace them, then as soon as they notice him, he goes to one repeated signal;
He waved his arms to mean that it was over.
At that moment, one of the administrators comes to hug and kiss him, but Messi impatiently removes him because there is something more important now;
It's all over.
The entire Messi family responds to him with the same gesture, then the movement of his arms gradually turns into a greeting.
Indeed, it seems confusing at that moment;
Was he greeting them from the start?
Verification requires going back to another scene that took place during the post-Holland festivities;
One of the clips shows the members of the national team celebrating with the Argentine public, and Messi, unusually, in the back of the crowd, then leaves them and walks alone, closing his eyes and raising his head to the sky, as if he was trying to steal a few moments for himself, then he lowers his pants and pulls his shirt, trying to cover his face, breathing. He sighed, as if he had jumped off the train at the last moment.
This is exactly what happened during the Netherlands game;
Messi jumped off the train at the last minute, because any result other than qualifying for the semi-finals would have made it a failed World Cup, and would have sent it back to square one.
This is the body language of a man who has just escaped a disaster, not a man who qualified for the World Cup semi-finals for the second time in his career.
This is the body language of a man who has just won, but who is not thinking about what might happen next, but about what would have happened if he had not won.
This is what makes us believe that the post-final signal meant that it was really over.
Now let us pause for a moment and imagine what kind of celebration this is;
Why would someone suggest it's over after winning the World Cup?
Why doesn't he clench his fists, raise the victory sign, or hit his chest, pointing to the slogan?
The answer is simple.
Because the most important event was actually the end of the matter, the end of the suffering, the accusations and the doubts, and again, that was the body language of a man who felt salvation, not victory.
A man feels liberated.
A man who feels the relief you get after paying off a huge debt, if your debt is the World Cup.
In the same audio recording of Cassari, he talked about his feelings as an Argentine immigrant in Catalonia when he saw scenes of hostility to Messi in Argentina, and how he was shaken when Messi told his son's question, which he could never answer: "Why do they kill you in Argentina?"
Messi watched the clip with his wife, then sent Casciari an audio message saying that they cried together afterwards.
Despite the World Cup, and despite all the happy pictures of him holding it up while kissing it as he fell asleep, the World Cup itself did not forget him.
When the people of your country burn your shirt, call you ugliest, and extremism reaches the point of revoking your nationality, it is difficult for the World Cup to make you forget all of that.
This trophy is different from any trophy, and what preceded it had not happened with any player who had held it before.
Paradoxically, the Argentines insisted that this cup be the only way to introduce Lionel Andres Messi, and although he was never convinced of that, he was happy at the end of it all.
What made winning the World Cup an opportunity for redemption rather than an opportunity for celebration?
How did such a moment become just the end of a long tragedy?
Believe it or not;
human memory.
How do we remember what we remember?
How do we forget what we forget?
In that case, lies were the way;
The lies that transformed the man who did not hesitate to cheat whenever he had the opportunity, starting with scoring goals with his hands, and ending with putting tranquilizers in opponents’ water bottles, and finding no alternative but to confront psychological and nervous pressures with drugs and stimulants, into a football god, who is measured by everyone, and not measured by anyone. .
They are the same lies that turned the man who did not hesitate in 2010 to hide behind a cup he achieved a quarter of a century ago, evading his responsibilities, and sacrificing his best players, into a brave hero who gives everyone lessons on how to deal with pressure, lead the team and unite with the people. Everyone is assured that it will not be repeated, no matter what the rest do, and that the most they may reach is for their names to be mentioned next to his.
(11)
Believe it or not;
This man (Maradona) publicly admitted in 2005 that they deliberately drugged the Brazilian players in the quarter-finals of the World Cup 90, in the famous match on which the most famous song “You will not forget, Brazil” was built, and his statement almost caused the imposition of an international penalty on his country after the moves of the Brazilian Federation Legal, however, the most persistent and determined lie in the history of football withstood, and even turned into a cause for pride.
(12) (13)
The truth is simple and obvious, although no one wants to tell it. In the history of Argentine football, there has been nothing more powerful and influential than lies.
Timeless lies, facts and even personal confessions.
36 years of lying can be increased, and we do not need artificial intelligence to predict it, and on top of it, a good part of the truth about Maradona.
——————————————————————————
Sources:
1- the base of the end peak;
How do our impressions turn into memories?
Niels Norman Group
2- Why do we remember what we remember?
- Vox
3- Maradona must not turn a blind eye to Mourinho's brilliant negativity - The Guardian
4- How did Maradona miss Messi's best chance to win the World Cup?
Goal
5- The history between Mueller and Maradona - DW Kick Off
6- Football as a religion;
Maradona Church - Vice
7- Maradona Church;
Dean Diego!
- 90 Minutes
8- The written text that made Messi cry!
- El Pais
9- Maradona: "I tell Messi not to play for the Argentine national team again!"
—Marca
10- Scaloni: "Maradona will watch us from the sky!"
Daily Mail
11- Diego Maradona criticizes Lionel Messi's leadership - Sky
12- Maradona's confessions support Branco's account of drugged water bottles in the 1990 World Cup - The Irish Times
13- Brazil commemorates the narcotic water bottles 15 years after the incident!
- The Guardian