There is finally something new to say about Lionel Messi, World Cup winner

And perhaps more than any other in the history of the sport, this game was about what people want, because that was exactly what Messi wanted too.

Just before kick-off at the Lusail, as he walked back towards the touchline to hand over France’s pre-match pendant, something in his peripheral vision caught Messi’s attention. It was the movement of a photographer, going in for a close-up on the trophy, which was still standing on its plinth between the dugouts. Messi stole a look at it for a couple of seconds, then went back to carrying out his pre-match duties. By the time they were completed, it had gone again. You asked yourself if that would be as close as he got to the trophy all night. You were not asking yourself that for long.

Messi stoon on the verge of history

It began well – perhaps too well – and as it often has over the past month, with Messi standing over a penalty. The first World Cup final goal of his career was his sixth at this tournament, two-thirds of them at that point having come from the spot. Even that resembles a triumph of sorts. Penalty-taking has always been the one curiously average aspect in his magisterial game, the one area in need of improvement. He has scored four of five in Qatar, six of seven including shoot-outs, comfortably bettering his mediocre career record.

Yet nobody inside the Lusail or the billions watching worldwide came to see Messi score from 12 yards. Had that been all, they may have even left feeling slightly short changed. What they came for was the goal that appeared to take hold of this final, that appeared to have won it. And even though it was the best team goal to grace this stage since Mexico City in 1970, its high point came from Messi’s left foot, that instrument of grace and beauty that is equally just as ruinous and devastating, flicking the ball backwards to set Julian Alvarez away, to Alexis Mac Allister, to Angel di Maria for two.

Argentina had never it had this good and they had never had it this easy. The only problem was that 120 years of history suggested it should not be. For the first 80 minutes of this final, France put in a listless, abysmal performance that was only rendered even more inexplicable by the powers of resurrection that followed. Kylian Mbappé is the second man to score a hat-trick in a World Cup final. He is also the first to do so and lose. The comeback that Didier Deschamps’ side produced provided us with the best, most dramatic World Cup final in living memory.

But even that is secondary to the final chapter of one of sport’s most compelling stories, the type that sport rarely allows to be written. It was nearly even better. It was nearly perfection. For a minute or ten back there, it appeared as though Messi would be the match-winner, as though the ugliest of his near-century of goals for Argentina would be the difference. It would not. But who won it was not important. All that mattered was that they did. Messi took the first penalty of the shoot-out, as he did in the quarter-final, leaving his fate, his destiny and arguably his legacy in the hands of others.

When that interview with a 13-year-old Messi was shared around, many missed arguably the most interesting parts. As well as the PE teacher ambition, Messi was asked several quick-fire questions about what he wants to achieve in life. His “objective” was to finish secondary school. His “goal” was to play in Argentina’s first division. His “hope” was to play in it with Newell’s. His “dream” was to play for Argentina. Assuming that he already knew he was fairly decent at football, it was hardly the stuff of Icarus.

At long last, Messi is a World Cup winner

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And yet so far, he has fallen short against almost every single one of those measures. Messi never finished school, being whisked off to La Masia just a few months after giving that interview. He is still waiting for his debut in Argentina’s first division, just as he still has not played for Newell’s. He did not become a PE teacher, either. He would achieve the most difficult of those ambitions, though. He would achieve his dream and play for Argentina.

And after 17 years in international football, after the longing and the waiting, after the retirements and coming out of retirements, after breaking down in the dressing room in after the quarter-final defeat to Germany in 2010, crying, convulsing and wailing at a story that seemed doomed to repeat itself, there is finally something new to say. Lionel Messi is a World Cup winner. And maybe if you asked a 13-year-old Messi, he would say that’s enough.

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