There’s a moment in every Argentina game, usually when things get uncomfortable and 80,000 heads turn in the same direction. They fixated on a 39-year-old with graying stubble and the nonchalant gaze of a man strolling to the corner store.
It happened again on Friday night in Miami, with the reigning World Cup champions two fingertips from one of the most stunning upsets in tournament history.
Everyone was looking for Lionel Messi to respond. And Lionel Messi, as he has done for two decades, answered.
(Photo by Jussi Eskola/Soccrates/Getty Images)
His numbers at this World Cup read like a typo. Seven goals in four games, leading the Golden Boot race at an age when most of his generation are doing punditry. A hat-trick against Algeria that made him the oldest man to score one at a World Cup. A brace against Austria that carried him past Miroslav Klose and made him the all-time leading scorer in the tournament’s history. A free kick off the bench against Jordan.
Then Friday: a first touch of pure silk off a long ball, a dink over Vozinha, and a 20th goal across his six World Cup appearances. Nobody had ever reached 20. He has now scored in eight consecutive World Cup matches. Nobody had ever done that either.
And when Cape Verde equalized in the 103rd minute and the unthinkable was bewilderingly unfolding, it was Messi’s set-piece delivery in the 111th minute that found Cristian Romero’s head and saved the champions from embarrassment.
For most of his career, Messi was measured against Diego Maradona. The comparison was always framed around one thing: Diego dragged Argentina to a World Cup in 1986, and Leo hadn’t. It was reductive and probably unfair, a career of impossible beauty held hostage by a single trophy. Then came Qatar and one of the greatest finals ever played, ending the debate in golden confetti. The asterisk became a crown.
That’s what makes this summer so remarkable. Messi has nothing left to prove. The trophy is won. The ghost is at peace. Messi could have retired into legend years ago, and instead he’s here, in his sixth World Cup, playing more matches on this stage than any man in history, breaking records that took a century to build. He isn’t hanging on. He’s growing, again, in real time.
(Photo by Carmen Mandato – FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images)
