Published 06.01
KANSAS CITY. It is said to have been 20 years since he scored his first World Cup goal, it is said that he will turn 39 next week.
None of that is true, or at least not relevant.
For Argentina’s number 10 there is no age, for him there is no time.
Leo Messi is eternal.
Just get it over the top. Give him the Ballon d’Or here and now.
Only Algeria, you say…? Only the first match of a long tournament, where Argentina cannot even be considered favorites.
Jojo, but who cares? What does it matter?
It is obvious to anyone with a pair of eyes and a tail that this is of course the world’s best soccer player. Leo Messi was the best yesterday, he’s the best today and he’ll still be the best as he hobbles around the retirement home with a walker and a pair of way too big slippers.
The ball will respond when he talks to it then too. The ball will speak to him as it does to no one else.
As long as he lives and breathes, no one will be able to match him.
Ever since he moved to Miami as a 36-year-old, it’s been as if Leo Messi has written himself off international individual awards. It has somewhere been part of a tacit, global agreement.
Everyone had Messi on their backs
Whoever plays in MLS accepts to no longer be included in the assessment.
In fact, he’s been the best all-time – should get all the awards every year – even if his masterpieces against the Vancouver Whitecaps and Colorado Rapids are now out of contention.
Now he came to Kansas City in the rural American heartland, where they have become quite used to world celebrities in recent years.
Arrowhead Stadium is an arena that has taken up more and more popular cultural space, as it was here that the relationship between Taylor Swift and NFL player Travis Kelce was both initiated, publicized and publicized.
Okay for that, but now it was just for Taylor Swift to crouch, step aside and move into the shadows.
The old pike was in town.
There are no statistically proven measures, but no one can with any credibility claim anything other than Lionel Messi from Rosario is one of the world’s five most famous people.
Watching his team play football is something different than watching a normal football team, both inside and outside the lines.
No matter where in the world Argentina play, the stands are draped in sky blue and white, but on this night it became clear early on that it wasn’t just inflation-stricken compatriots who sold their parents’ homes to watch La Seleccion.
They all had national team shirts with Leo Messi’s name on the back, but tens of thousands of them were Americans, Indians, Nigerians, Danes, Indonesians and Catalans.
4-4-1-Messi
People who wanted to be dazzled by a star rather than support a national team, supporters who don’t know the language spoken in the corner, let alone the chants that start out there.
None of that is now Leo Messi’s fault, but just some kind of inevitable consequence of a genius the likes of which the sport of football has never seen before in just over 160 years.
The world champions from the Pampas are called “La Scaloneta” – after their national team captain – but Lionel Scaloni would be the first to admit that everything he did on the sidelines was about giving Lionel Messi the conditions to be Lionel Messi.
Gaming philosophy? Formation? 4-4-1-Messi.
A back line that protects the goal. A midfield that runs and tackles for its captain. A relief forward who is a big star himself – Lautaro Martinez or Julian Alvarez – but who still accepts that he mostly only exists to open up spaces for the guy next to him.
One for all…? Anyway, all for one.
Normally, of course, you can’t build a functioning football team that way, but this dressing room doesn’t just put up with the scheme – they approve of it, encourage it.
They know where this model has taken them.
Argentina became world champions on these premises. And yes, despite the fact that time should have run away from them, they may very well become world champions again.
Leo Messi had already bounced an offside ball into the net when he received a line-breaking pass from bodyguard Rodrigo De Paul and turned up. A couple of seconds later, Luca Zidane in the Algerian goal had allowed the ball to pass all the way up the crossbar.
In the stands sat Zinedine Zidane with his inscrutable Mona Lisa face. Himself one of the truly great masters of all time, but still in a different category than the overpowering overlord down there in the spotlight.
Order restored
No one like him, not even among the other world conquerors.
A little earlier this day, Kylian Mbappé had scored two goals. Speed.
Then Erling Håland followed up with two goals. Force.
Now it was Leo Messi’s turn to call and raise. Football.
A return with built-in body finesse, a patented left turn into the nearest corner. Things that look simple, but everything is simple for those who know things that no one else can.
Hat trick. Order restored in the cosmos and universe.
The player who has won the most Ballon d’Or in history is now also the player who has scored the most World Cup goals ever.
Football is a sport based on the fact that there is more than one truth and that all opinions are valid, but there are exceptions where no discussion is necessary.
If anyone ever claims anything other than that Lionel Messi is the best player of all time, there’s really no reason to keep listening.
