The Emotions, The Happiness, The Pain, The Hardwork, That’s it.!!
The world feels more united today.
There is no meaning or purpose in life other than what an individual’s freedom is able to create. Life can seem meaningless if we just let ourselves get lost in our toils, wars and disappointments. But we have been able to invent things that give us pleasure and elevate the value of life. One of those pleasures is sports and football in particular.
As a casual observer of the game, I am still amazed by how much footballers celebrate the first goal with as much passion as the one that wins the trophy.
Every second seems like a minute. Every minute seems like an hour and every kick of the ball feels like it could change or rewrite footballing history forever.
With so much at stake, the soccer Gods thought it wasn’t fair on everyone watching to treat them to just 90 minutes of soccer. Unpredictability is one way of measuring competitive balance – In extra time, with both Messi and Mbappe scoring. In the end, though, Argentina did just enough to scrape past France, becoming only the fourth nation in the world to have won the World Cup three times or more.
The literary critic Edward Said coined the phrase “late style” to describe the final works of a composer or writer—when the decay of the body can’t help but inform artistry when creativity is infused with the bumps, bruises, and wisdom of a life almost fully lived. By virtue of that, Messi had the ending he so dearly craved.
Martinez was absolutely integral to Argentina’s success. He didn’t just psyche out Kingsley Coman and Aurelien Tchouameni in the shootout, he was the reason the game went all the way to penalties, after producing the greatest save you’ll ever see with an outstretched boot, from Randal Kolo Muani right at the end of extra-time.
Leave all tactics aside. Try to forget how Mbappe single-handedly dragged France past the finish line and just concentrate on this. Messi is now in a galaxy of his own. This is what their World Cup campaign was about. Yes, there were several of those Messi moments, including in the final when he bagged an invaluable brace. But there were other moments that made this Messi moment possible. Di Maria, Mac Allister, Rodrigo de Paul deserve a place in the uppermost tier of Argentinian sporting history.
It is as fairy tale a fairy tale could get. It is as absurd a narrative it could get. If it was not Messi, you would not have believed it. But because it is, you do. And his teammates did too. That is why Argentina are now atop the world.