Raised by the generation he raised, Messi is king of the world

When Leo places his head down on his pillow and the roar of thousands becomes a silence only broken by the ringing of his ears, he can rest knowing he has completed the beautiful game.

This isn’t about Messi suddenly and ‘finally’ ending the GOAT debate.

If Emiliano Martinez wasn’t able to make the saves he did in that penalty shootout, the narrative flips — Lionel Messi loses a second World Cup final and people revise how highly they rate him even though his performances would remain identical. It’s a fickle criteria.

Instead this was about Lionel Messi, as the best player to grace the beautiful game, being rewarded by the sport of football itself in this poetic way. For the 18 and counting years of artistry, a career that has married the unbelievable with the undeniable, this tournament was the most appropriate of thank yous.

The ball he kicks, the grass his studs tear, the woodwork his rolling shots kiss — the cumulative parts of the sport finally unified to give back to the genius that gave so much to the millions: young children of the new generations for the first time, inspired, and for the elders who have admired Messi’s journey, grateful to catch a fleeting vignette and who may not be here to witness his coronation in 2022.

Critique has followed Messi, despite his extraterrestrial quality, often born out of the Diego Maradona comparison. For the globe that fell in love with Messi, it was always interesting some of his more vocal critics came from the country that held claim to the man himself. And Maradona, like some of the Argentinians, had previously spoken about Lionel’s lack of an expressive personality. Messi was a lead by his genius player but when the team needed something to galvanise the team and speak to the heart, when the going got really tough, Messi remained true to his nature, a seeming introvert, hoping to shift the game through his footballing quality.

Amongst his unfathomable brilliance, what is lost in the Lionel Messi story is his unwavering need to be the greatest, built upon a career of hard work. The narrative between Lionel and his closest modern competitor has been advertised as natural talent against hard work but this poses an entirely false dichotomy.

Natural talent looks to explain away just how effortlessly the Argentinian makes alien things looks possible but Lionel has reinvented and improved on his game with the same ingenuity and invention he plays his assists.

Lionel Messi was never this good at free-kicks but at some point he decided it was an area he could devote time to mastery…

The best free-kick taker in the world.

Messi was a player criticised for a poor penalty taking record, which by the numbers actually just put him as an average taker. By the standards of anybody remotely near ‘GOAT’ conversation, I suppose being average is to be poor. That poor penalty taker narrative too was exacerbated by the timing of when he’d miss those penalties, on occasion during vital, all-eyes-on-him moments.

Through this tournament though, none of that was to be true. The second of two scored penalties today, came as Lionel clawed back the momentum after Kylian put away his third, and France’s first penalty of the deciding shootout. With remarkable coolness, Lionel ever so gently rolled the ball to the side of Lloris.

Messi, in his endeavour for greatness, internalised the penalty technique of a Neymar Jr, to walk, watch and wait for the micro-movements of the keeper to expose their diving intention, before caressing it the other way.

Look, for somebody as good as Messi, to sit as the greatest to play the game, it would be very easy for him to accept the skillset he’d amassed at say 26 years old. It was the skillset that delivered him countless trophies, record Ballon d’Ors and global adoration. This wasn’t enough. He had to become the best free-kick taker on Earth. He had to become proficient at penalties with an efficiency that matched the planet’s elites by taking what they do, and doing so as if he was the inventor.

And all of this acts to drive home one point.

Lionel Messi, the shy genius, the introvert, the one who lacked that personality…well, if this wasn’t the tournament to dispel that myth. The reinvention of personality, I mean how ridiculous is that.

In the pursuit for greatness, whether conscious or by virtue of his natural footballing journey, Lionel Messi became everything the hypothetical greatest would be, by doing everything the hypothetical greatest would do, all the way down to personality.

We saw the little boy from Rosario, Argentina: fearless, expressive, direct — his long hair trailing behind him as he fixated onto the opposition goal making a beeline for it, again and again. We saw him play protagonist in a side with players that, if not for Messi, would’ve boasted a career of Ballon d’Ors. We saw him, as Guardiola’s arrowhead, take apart Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United.

We saw Lionel Messi mature into the prolific, statistically-anomalous output machine, tallying more goals in a calendar year than any player ever has. And as he aged, a beard on his face, embodying wisdom of years played, he spent his nights in his studio, painting new canvases of classics. At this stage, Leo’s game was one of the creator, with full artistic freedom for what the picture of the game would look like, before giving those same masterpieces away for others to enjoy.

On that trajectory, one would assume Lionel’s flame would gently flicker before leaving the room in a content darkness.

But at 35 years old we saw Lionel Messi the leader, the captain, the president, the general.

Lionel Messi alongside his battalion, a few of them scarred through numerous shared past battles — think Di Maria, who could be eulogised in his own 10,000 words. Think Nicolas Otamendi, who for his unmatched commitment in everything he does, deserved to celebrate an honour of this magnitude. Think Sergio Aguero, who for this tournament was one too many, carried his brother since ‘05, on his shoulders, parading him for the nation to serenade.

The rest of the family comprised mostly of the hungry and enthusiastic players of newer generations. These were the children and teenagers who had grown up inspired by a Lionel Messi of myths and legends: a fictional character, a superhero, rather than a team-mate. Think the likes of Julian Alvarez, Enzo Fernandez, and Lisandro Martinez, probably all the way to Rodrigo de Paul, Leandro Paredes, and Emiliano Martinez too.

The 2014 generation alongside Messi couldn’t make the final step to footballing immortality but Lionel Messi tonight was raised high, on the shoulders of those he helped raised. This generation grew up watching Lionel Messi — years of his game imprinted into their mind and mimicked in their actions. Today, the children of Argentina were present to celebrate Messi’s coronation through a tournament they helped win.

Maradona and Argentina held the highest of expectations for young Leo born out of a tough love only explained in the way a strict but well-intentioned father might have for his son. And today was the day the torch was passed on. The ‘we’re proud of you’ moment for Lionel Messi with even those impossibly lofty expectation surpassed.

Draped in a cloak symbolic of royalty, as the best player of the tournament, Messi has genuinely done it. When he places his head down on his pillow and the roar of thousands becomes a silence only broken by the ringing of his ears, he can rest content knowing he has completed the beautiful game for everything it has to offer.

Knowing Messi though and having seen it finally bleed through the bandage of his previously introverted demeanour, he is relentless — blessed and cursed with a need to be better, always.

As a master of reinventing himself, to improve on each past iteration, competing only against himself, he won’t see today as the full stop on his story.

For the king, tomorrow is just another day of his incumbent reign.

Thank you Leo.

“I’m not retiring from the National Team. I want to continue playing as a champion.”

— Lionel Messi (18/12/2022)