For Messi and Argentina, the longer wait was worth it
The 35-year-old superstar takes home the trophy he craved after the most extraordinary final in World Cup history.
LIONEL Messi had to wait and wait and wait. He had to wait until he was reaching the sunset of his glittering, glorious career. He had to wait until he had already tasted the sting of defeat in a World Cup final. He had to wait even after he seemed to have inspired Argentina to beat France in the Fifa World Cup final on Sunday (Dec 18) – first in normal time, then again in extra time.
He had to wait until after he scored two goals — but Kylian Mbappe of France, his heir apparent on football’s world stage, had netted three, becoming the first man to score a hat trick in a World Cup final in 56 years. The game ended 2-2 after 90 minutes; extra time finished 3-3; and then there was the penalty shootout that Argentina won 4-2, the last twist in the most extraordinary final in this tournament’s long history.
Only then did Messi’s wait, his agony, come to an end. Only then could he finally claim the one prize that had eluded him, the one honour he craved above all others, the one achievement that could further cement his status as the greatest player to have played the game: delivering a World Cup championship to Argentina, its third overall, and first since 1986.
A wild, raw energy had swirled around Argentina throughout this tournament. It coursed through the streets of Doha, packed with tens of thousands of Argentine fans for the last four weeks. It washed down from the stands during each of the country’s seven games here, a pulsating, urgent electricity.
The players detected it, too, their euphoria after every victory just a little more intense, just a little more desperate, the pressure of not only ending Argentina’s 36-year wait for a third World Cup but also ensuring Messi’s career apotheosis driving them on and perhaps weighing them down in equal measure. The 35-year-old Messi had said this would be his last World Cup, his last chance to experience a joy that he and many of the fans had not felt in their lifetime.
Everything Argentina did in Qatar was to an extreme. Its shock loss to Saudi Arabia on the third day of the tournament plunged the team into despair. Each of its subsequent victories unleashed a fervent, unrestrained euphoria.
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Sunday night had teased deliverance. With only a little more than 10 minutes to play, Argentina stood on the cusp. Coach Lionel Scaloni’s team had shouldered the weight of history, the weight of expectation, admirably lightly.
Argentina had not so much as quieted Mbappe as silenced him. La Albiceleste opened the scoring in the 23rd minute when Angel Di Maria was fouled and Messi scored the resulting penalty.
Argentina flexed its muscle in the 36th minute with one of the most sumptuous goals ever scored in a World Cup final, a flowing move orchestrated by Alexis Mac Allister and finished by Di Maria but hinging on a pass that was a moment of characteristic Messi alchemy, a silken touch that turned the most base material into something golden.
For all that time, the 2-0 lead looked like smooth sailing. Argentina, however, should have known it would not work like that. In the space of two minutes late in the second half, France somehow wiped out Argentina’s advantage, all of its painstaking work crumbling in the blink of an eye.
Another penalty, this one converted by Mbappe in the 80th minute, followed almost immediately by a fierce volley, again by the same French striker.
Argentina’s players slumped, the breath drawn out of their lungs. They had been so close. In an instant it was 2-2. France smelled blood; Argentina could do nothing but hang on for extra time. Messi roused himself again, driving the ball home in the 108th minute after goalkeeper Hugo Lloris saved Lautaro Martinez’s earlier shot.
Once more, Messi was swamped by delirious teammates. Once more, he stood in front of Argentina’s fans, pumping his arms, an idol and his worshippers. But once more, Mbappe would not be denied, he would not accept a cameo role in someone else’s story.
His shot struck the outstretched arm of Argentina’s Gonzalo Montiel. In the 118th minute, Mbappe drilled home the penalty to level the scores. This incredible match would go the distance, to the sweet cruelty of a penalty shootout.
There, for once, it would not be Messi — or Mbappe — who delivered the decisive blow. They both scored. But no matter how teams try to manipulate the order, to direct destiny, penalty shootouts are, invariably, a place for unlikely heroes and unfortunate villains. Kingsley Coman and Aurelien Tchouameni missed for France, leaving Montiel, an unheralded right back, standing with his country, and Messi’s legacy, on his shoulders.
The noise that Argentina’s fans emitted when the ball struck the net seemed to pierce the sky. Messi’s wait, at last, was over.
In the moments after he had arrived at what he has always seen as both his destiny and his duty, though, Messi seemed improbably, blissfully calm. As his teammates ran to one another, to the massed bank of Argentina’s fans behind the goal in which the final, crucial blow had been delivered, most of them could bear it no longer.
For most, all of that hope, all of that belief, all of that fear broke at once. Di Maria’s face was stained with tears, his chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath. Messi, on the other hand, simply smiled, a brow briefly furrowing in a manner familiar to any harried parent as he tried to work out how his wife, Antonela Roccuzzo, might bring their three children onto the field.
It was only when he embraced his mother a few minutes later that he could maintain his composure no longer, when he finally allowed his joy, his relief, to sweep him away. Messi might have learned long ago that it would not be easy to emulate Diego Maradona, to turn Argentina into a world champion; he could not, surely, have imagined it would be quite this hard.
Now it was done. He congratulated his teammates. He joined them, arms slung over their shoulders, as they danced and bounced with their fans. He found his family, clasped them tight.
And then he was summoned to the stage that had been erected in the middle of the field. Fifa likes to draw these things out; before the World Cup trophy is presented, it must run through the young player of the tournament, the top goalkeeper, the leading scorer, the best player. That final accolade went, of course, to Messi. This World Cup was about him. It has always been about him.
He collected his best-player statue from Fifa’s beaming president Gianni Infantino; shook hands with the assembled dignitaries; and walked off down the podium. The trophy he cared about was sitting there, golden and gleaming, in his sight.
There were a few minutes, yet, before he would have a shiny medal placed around his neck, a ceremonial bisht draped over his shoulders, and the chance to hoist the trophy into the air. It was an hour or so before he would be carried around the field on his teammates’ shoulders, a vast crowd of staff members and partners and children in their wake, an homage to Maradona’s celebrations in 1986, the last time Argentina were world champions.
He still had all of that to come. He would have his moment, soon enough. But now he stopped next to the trophy. He looked at it. And then he leaned down, ever so slightly, caressed its smooth dome and kissed it once, twice. Messi had waited long enough. He did not want to wait any longer. NYTIMES
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