Messi is strange case.sometimes runs his heart out in meaningless games sometimes walks in life or death matches.
One of his flaws is his in game arrogance at times. Like he expects the game to magically open up at times without maximum effort. I'm no psychologist but one of the reasons I feel this is is because he had the Barcelona golden era so early in his career (when he was 21-25). Things around him were easy and it's a bad habit that stuck with him.
Every now and then he does run lights out (for his standards) from the early on, like v Mexico and Poland. But then there's days like today, where it could come back to bite them big time.