Leonel, Leo, Leo, Leo, Leo. The chosen one. Like our parents, who said that there would never be another footballer like Pelé, we will say that there will be none like Lio, like Messi, the greatest in the world. Did you see how he captained Argentina from the first half kick-off? Did you see the confidence, the coldness of the mercenary, when he took the penalty in the 22nd minute? He barely jogged and before kicking he made a short stop, as if to say I know the secret of all this, and he kicked to the left post without any tremor. Goal, goal, goal of the greatest.
Was it criminal? Did they push the Di María noodle? No matter. It will pass like the goal with Maradona’s hand, like a great Deus ex machina.
This is the love that the most patriarchal, macho men allow themselves: the love for the warrior, the love for the gladiator, the love for the man who puts his blood on the field, the love for the soccer players who represent what the other mortals will never be. And that is why now when I see him play the second half, and I see his serene face, his face as a man who does not seek glory, but lives his fate, his destiny, his time, I feel like crying . But the desire to cry is because in him I see those few men who suffered his sign: Kafka, Sarmiento, Borges, Che Guevara, the Apostle Paul, Strefan Zweig. And just now he receives a pass in the 59th minute, he played a beautiful trick between two French defenders and missed the chance of the goal. The camera focuses on him and he laughs, laughs like the men who make history.
But are you watching Argentina soccer in this game? See the speed and clarity of Di María, the strength of De Paul, the run of Álvarez? We will say that we saw Argentina in 2022, which will be the same as saying Argentina in 1978 or 1986, or Brazil in 1970. It will be like saying: I saw a feat, I saw the beauty of the coordination of eleven jugglers.
Ah, but Messi. This match is his 1,003rd game. Messi has scored 792 goals so far and with that penalty, he scored 331 assists, but those assists were never a mere pass, an approximation, they have been and will be until the end of his career the calculation of a chess player. And he came to this final to break everything: he is the footballer with the most appearances in a World Cup, 26 —one more than Lottar Mattaüs—, and he has more minutes than the Italian Paolo Maldini. In addition, he is the Argentine with the most World Cups: 5. What is surprising is that he surpassed Pelé: he scored 13 goals in the World Cups, one more than the King.
But wait, it’s minute 81 and France have just scored two goals in 120 seconds. She is Qatar’s deadliest forward. Mbappé took a very strong penalty and the second goal was an impressive shot from the ground, thus defeating the never-well-loved Dibu. Goal, great goal. Mbappé, who seems to be the evolution of Cristiano Ronaldo, a man who is pure physique, pure strength, imposes himself with the capacity of his body. And they show Messi on camera and he smiles. Is rare. He smiles matter-of-factly, as perhaps Ajax smiled after the gods misled him into losing glory.
Then comes the suffering
Messi is pure play, pure football, pure gift. He has the gift of modern acrobatics. Nobody else: neither Cristiano nor Mbappé nor Neymar. It’s Messi. That’s how things are, the Spirit blows where he wants. And it’s time to find out. It is minute 85:41. We don’t know who will be the world champion. And the minutes go by and France is there, like Achilles fighting for the remains of his lover Patroclus. I write like crazy. Football makes no sense, the feat, the fight, the blood in the sand makes sense. Messi finishes off in minute 96, and the commentator says: “This is the best player in the world.” It is. These last minutes were an epiphany: Messi pursuing his destiny.
Messi, the same one who said four years ago: “That’s it, for me the national team is over, I fought a lot, I tried, there are already 4 finals, I couldn’t win it, I did everything possible.” In the docuseries “Sean Eternal”, he said: “The truth is that I had a very big thorn in my head, I couldn’t believe that all the finals we played and that none of us have been lucky enough to be champions ourselves.” He said it that way, as Argentines speak, with the lilting sound of a poet who writes backwards. It must be said that between 1993 and 2021 the Argentine team reached 7 finals and lost them all. I write and the game continues: will this be another failed final?
There is something about Messi that is greater than his figure as a lethal footballer, that goes beyond being a dog man, as Hernán Casciari wrote, it is his disbelief. They say that he once said: “I never set myself the goal of being the best player in the world. For me I am only a player. I just want them to remember me as a good person when I retire.” That phrase is verified in the interview that Sebastián Vignolo did for Star Plus and that is part of a series called In the first person. Messi looks like a double, the action double of himself.
In that interview that he gave in the living room of his house in France, he says things like this with his tired, lost voice, stuck in the cave of his shyness: “I was educated as a child, with the values that they instilled in me so much. my old man as old, and then I reinforced all that in Barcelona, in the place and the club where I fell, with very identified values, I always grew up with that philosophy (…) I have few friends, and later my family, I always took refuge a lot in my family, for me it is the most important thing. I don’t need much more.”
When did Rio —after Mbappé’s second goal— think about those values, did you think that the last possible final eluded you?
Now, when I don’t know if he will win or lose and the 115 minutes are counting down, I think of this other phrase he said in that interview: “I am very happy. I am lucky to do what I like, what I dreamed of since I was little, to have a wonderful family, my wife, my children, my great family, my brother, my children, my wife’s family, the truth is that for me it is the most important”.
Messi, now you have to do a miracle, like in the glorious years of Barcelona and you were alone in the world. And here the 107th minute shot occurs and he hits a shot from 18, a half volley that ends up in the hands of Lloris. And goal, gentlemen, ladies, gentlemen, goal. Goal, goal, goal. Messi. Messi. Messi. You did this miracle. The dwarf, the dog man, the impossible man. I read. I read. I read. Mess.
But this is just suffering for the Argentines and now there is a penalty. Di Maria cries as if she were an orphan. Mbappé charges, Mbappé doesn’t fail, didn’t I already say that he was like Cristiano Ronaldo but better, a version 5.0, a superior robot?
I remember the finals from USA 1994, there was never one like that. Messi, by God, it’s a miracle that we haven’t seen an Argentina like this since Diego’s time. But no, and we go to penalties. There is no war without blood.
Penalties: Mbappé a criminal, Dibu barely touched the ball. Messi with the peace of mind of someone who has nothing to lose, of someone who has already sipped the cup of glory. I write, finish a sentence and Dibu covered a penalty. Dybala charges ugly, like a cripple, but he scores. But in France they charge worse, as if Napoleon had not been a conqueror but a shuffleboard player. And Paredes with such force… And Montiel… what can I tell you, I’m trembling for a man and his name is Leonel Messi.
The technician Scaloni is seated, barely crying, a few tears spilling out. Messi greets the stands, Messi who has the grace of the chosen one, the grace of a meerkat who beat the lions in a race — Mbappé was the black lion of the savannah — he barely wrinkles his eyebrows, cries like toothless, cries because he has what what was missing What does the greatest soccer man in the world think? Behind the hurricane, in his head, there must be a hiss of peace.
