What was the idea of putting Lionel Messi in, for at least a few minutes?

The news was surprising in the preview of the meeting between the Argentine National Team and Uruguay for the South American Qualifiers for the Qatar World Cup 2022: Lionel Messi was going to the substitute bench. 

Messi and Lionel Scaloni chatted in the previous one, they decided that the PSG player should start on the bench as a precaution for the contusion in his left knee and the first image of the Rosario in the field was in the warm-up, without the traditional free kicks and in the called "crazy" with his companions.

And, although the star was expected to appear in the second half, he did so sooner rather than earlier: at 30 minutes he replaced Giovani Lo Celso. Afterwards, he was not very active: he had a chance at 47, when he received outside the area from Marcos Acuña, but he finished very high.

The idea was not to expose Lionel Messi far from it. However, the bad game of the Argentine team demanded a bit of hierarchy from the middle of the court forwards, and what better than him to accommodate a team that was not even close to what it is capable of giving.