A Cup of Yerba Mate and Benin's Unanswered Question: How Do You Stop Messi?

A shopping mall in Buenos Aires. Rows of glass-fronted shops, a crowd, and in the middle of it a footballer lifts a mate gourd from a shelf — painted in Argentina's sky-blue and white, smelling of yerba leaf inside. He buys it, not for himself but for his children. The scene is so ordinary that the eye would normally skip past it. But the hand holding the gourd belongs to Benin defender Mohammad Tijani — and tomorrow that same hand will have to stand in front of Lionel Messi.

I learned to write in the twenty minutes after the final whistle. It is in those twenty minutes that the real story of a match becomes clear, and it is never written on the scoreline; it lives in the silence after the stadium empties. Benin's story is the same. The headline asks a question — what is Benin's plan to stop Messi? But the answer contains no tactical blueprint, no football vocabulary. The answer arrives through a shopping bag, a mate gourd, and the voice of an ordinary footballer.

This piece is an attempt to find that answer — another question hidden behind the first, one that may not exist on any coach's diagram, but does exist in people's minds.

The Context of Benin

Benin. A small country in West Africa whose football history is a history of hardened struggle. The team's nickname is "Les Écureuils" — the Squirrels. The name sounds sweet, but this team's road was never sweet. On the big stages of continental football they stumbled again and again, sometimes eliminated on paper, sometimes surviving dramatically.

At the 2026 Africa Cup of Nations they made history — reaching the quarter-finals for the first time. Their run ended with a defeat to Senegal, but that tournament changed Benin's footballing self-belief. In the years since, the team has shown again and again that it is not merely a participant but a competitor.

But being a competitor and facing Argentina are as far apart as sky and soil. Argentina means world champions, the dreams of millions of fans, and Messi. For Benin, this match is therefore not merely a fixture but an experience.

The match is set at the historic Monumental Stadium in Buenos Aires — the home of River Plate, where Argentina has spent its greatest nights. It is here that Messi is said to be playing his last match in the national shirt at the Monumental. That phrase — "the last time" — is what turns Benin's story into a story of emotion.

In 2026 I sat in Moscow's Luzhniki Stadium and watched England versus Croatia. After the final whistle, English reporters sprinted for the mixed zone while I stayed in my seat. In the upper tier, roughly eight thousand England supporters kept singing even as the stadium emptied. That day I understood that the true meaning of a match is often hidden in the voices of the defeated team's fans. In Benin's case, I want to hear that voice too.

The Central Question and Its Answer

Now to the central question. What is Benin's plan to stop Messi? As sources, we have essentially one name — Mohammad Tijani — and one outlet — C5N. Speaking to the Argentine broadcaster, Tijani made it clear there is no special plan. Their goal is simple: to enjoy the match.

At first this answer sounds like a joke, or an excess of humility. But on reflection it becomes clear that this is the most honest admission of all. Only a team that knows it may lose can say, we came to enjoy it. This is not fear of defeat; it is an acknowledgement of reality.

The mate gourd in Tijani's hand is the emblem of that acknowledgement. Yerba mate is inseparable from Argentine culture — a morning ritual, a symbol of friendship, a language of hospitality. A Benin footballer is buying that gourd for his children. In other words, he has not merely come to play on the opponent's pitch; he has taken that culture into his own hands.

This scene alone tells us that for Benin, this match is not a war but a festival. And those who come to a festival rather than a war are never slaves to a tactical blueprint.

Yet there is something subtle here. The question raised in the headline — a plan to stop Messi — is not really Benin's question. It is ours. We, the viewers and journalists, are accustomed to seeing every match as a tactical battle. Our minds ask, what is the plan? Because for us, a plan is the proof of civilisation.

But one part of football always lies beyond planning. That part is emotion, respect, and the beauty of the moment. When Benin's doctor calls Messi the "god of football," he is not offering tactical analysis — he is speaking from the heart.

"The god of football" — in those two words lies an entire era of football history. The phrase is not merely praise for Messi's talent; it is a form of surrender. Any player who stands before Messi knows that all his plans can collapse with a single shift of a foot.

My more than fifty years of watching football tell me that this kind of surrender sometimes becomes the greatest strength of all. A team that plays without fear can sometimes make the impossible possible. If Benin truly comes out to enjoy the match, they will carry no fear — and a fearless team is a dangerous one.

But the question is: does Tijani's remark represent the whole team? Here we must be careful. There is a vast difference between words heard from one player and the plan of an entire squad. We have no statement from Benin's coach. No tactical source.

This is an old problem in journalism — presenting a single quote as the position of a whole team. What Tijani said is his own. He may be the team's most honest voice, perhaps a representative of the team's mood, but he is not the coach.

Still, this single quote leads us toward a larger truth — that for Benin, Messi is not merely an opponent but an event, an experience. Standing before that experience, it is natural to forget about plans.

The Truth Inside the Tactics

From a tactical standpoint, there is really no such thing as "stopping" Messi. Because Messi cannot be marked alone. You have to cut his supply line. At the 2026 World Cup, France and Croatia all tried. None fully succeeded. If Benin were truly devising a plan to stop Messi, their main target would be Argentina's midfield, slowing players like Rodrigo De Paul.

But Benin does not have that luxury. Their defence will stand before Argentina's attack like a small wave before a mountain. Their only realistic plan will be to concede few goals, and, if possible, to score one.

Here Tijani's word "enjoy" becomes meaningful tactically as well. When you know the result may not go your way, your mental state becomes your real weapon. A frightened team loses by a wide margin; a relaxed team fights.

I have seen many matches in which a small team spent the first twenty minutes in terror before conceding. I have also seen the opposite — a team that comes out relaxed and makes a big side sweat.

So Benin's "planless" condition may in fact be a plan — a psychological one. It is simply not admitted, because admitting it destroys its magic.

This is where my statistics degree comes in. Data is the scaffolding of a building, but scaffolding is not the building. Inside the building there are people. Inside Benin there are people — Tijani, his children, that unnamed doctor, the whole squad. Some will remember this match for a lifetime; some may one day tell their children, I once stood in front of Messi.

The Angle Everyone Avoids

Now to the angle everyone avoids. When we write about a plan to stop Messi, we imagine Benin as a tactical side devising a scheme to contain him. But that imagination conceals a subtle contempt: we see Benin throughout as merely the opponent, never as the dreamer.

Showing Benin as happy, relaxed, absorbed in shopping is part of a certain kind of portrayal. It may be sweet, but within that sweetness lies a danger — a tendency not to see them as serious competitors.

I know this trap, because I once fell into it myself. Many years ago I wrote about an African team only in terms of their enthusiasm and joy, not their tactics. Later I understood that I had not been fair to them. They are not merely symbols of joy; they are a football team with their own plans, their own pain, their own coaching philosophy.

So my first task with Benin is to take them seriously. If they have a plan, we should know it. If they do not, we should know that too — but through interviews, not through guesswork.

One more thing matters here. Why did the doctor speak up mid-interview? Is he an authorised spokesperson for the team? Or is he simply a fan swept away by emotion at the sight of Messi? We do not have the answer. And without that answer, the phrase "god of football" is not entirely reliable by journalistic standards — even though it is a magnificent specimen of emotion.

Messi's "last match at the Monumental" — this claim, too, needs verification. Is it the last international match of his career? The last home match? The last match of a series? These three meanings are entirely different. Ambiguity is not a journalist's friend; it is the enemy.

Every pitch is a page, and every match is a draft we never finish. This match of Benin's is one such draft — beginning with the scene of buying a gourd, ending perhaps with a memory.

At sixty-nine, I trust the long view more than the live ticker. The result of a match fades; a single scene endures. That gourd in Tijani's hand will not fade.

In Closing

So what is Benin's plan? Perhaps it is this — the courage that lies inside having no plan. The decision to enjoy Messi rather than try to stop him.

Some achievements are won in empty stadiums and still echo in the bones. Benin may not win the match. But if they leave the pitch with their heads high after the final whistle, and if Tijani's children take a sip from that Argentine gourd — then that too is a kind of victory.

I want to remember this moment. Because I learned to write in the twenty minutes after the final whistle — and Benin's story is really the story of those twenty minutes, the twenty minutes in which a footballer understands that he may have lost, but that he has seen a god.

Tomorrow, when the ball rolls at the Monumental, some will look for a plan, some for a result. I will look for a gourd, a smile, and the moment when a Benin footballer looks at Messi and calls himself blessed.