How to start writing once again if four years ago in Qatar we thought that Leo Messi, finally having secured his World Cup, would send everything to hell to retire and rest with his beloved family. Here we all are again, including him, in another final at 39 years old, exhausting the vocabulary of journalists, who repeat ourselves more than garlic trying to be original without succeeding. If only it were just that he keeps playing… That’s not the point. The words would be different if he had failed, if he dragged himself as expected for his age. How sharp the pens and voices would be then, always more clever for criticism than for praise. But no. Eight goals and four assists in seven matches. Once again the best, GOAT, the greatest. Where does this guy come from? Why does he keep playing? It’s not for money. He already has enough to buy all of Rosario and Castelldefels. It must be because he enjoys it.
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I met him at 16, when Barcelona, wisely, did not allow interviews with minors unless they were part of the first team. But they let me talk to him. He was shy, using a long fringe to hide his embarrassment. He ate and slept with adolescent disorder but played football like a demon. Diets and fish would come later. Then his mentor was Ronaldinho.
He had arrived at Barça at 13, as if torn from his previous life. Neighborhood, family, friends… All suddenly a step behind except for his dad Jorge. Barcelona was his first airplane flight. Legendary things were said about him even before he started. They proved true. That he arrived measuring 1.40m, that in Argentina no club would pay for a treatment to help him grow (he injected himself daily for years to stimulate growth hormone), that videos circulated of him dribbling left and right at five years old, that his grandmother Celia took him by the hand to the park and whispered that one day he would be the best footballer in the world, that her grandson would dedicate all his goals looking at the sky because she died too soon, that his first contract was signed on a napkin…
The script seemed written in Qatar, he had won the World Cup and logic demanded retirement
Between all that and today in New York, the whole story is known. Incredible goals and plays every week delivered in double sessions as if an irresistible inner force pushed him to do them. Almost always with Barça, the club he repeatedly says he loves despite knowing he was used by those who let him go. Perhaps because he knows deep down the club belongs to the people and the people adore him. They will reunite again.
To understand what Messi means as a footballer, you have to discard descriptions that apply to most others. ‘He doesn’t score many goals but drags defenders’; ‘he moves well into space’; ‘he masters positional play’… There are no euphemisms for Messi’s football because everything about him is exploited. His dribbling is varied but precise, it’s about deceiving the opponent with the move each play demands without resorting to ornamentation. Dry or prolonged, soft or explosive, low or chipped, right-footed or left-footed, under the legs… The great merit is the minimalism with which he executes what he sets out to do. He scores goals like a baker makes bread. It’s his craft, so it doesn’t pose much difficulty. The problem is for the other bakers. All of them.
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In the Argentine national team, his weight is overwhelmingly enormous. He is everything for the team and the country, turned into a deity for a fanbase prone to paroxysm, he who is so little given to acting and somewhat expressionless, as if consciously acting as a dam to adjust the image his countrymen project (let’s admit it, we are saturated with the Muchachos, with epic as a survival method, with the Malvinas and with fans selling furniture, cars, and gold teeth to pay for travel and tickets, only Leo returns calm to us).
In Argentina, his weight is overwhelmingly enormous. He is everything for the team and also for the country
Messi adds one last merit. His teammates would die for him and have been infected by his closeness for years. They are getting better and better and have the gift of looking for him and finding him. Cuti Romero, Paredes, Enzo, Lautaro, Julián… They are great footballers under the great umbrella.
Today those soldiers will step onto the pitch behind the captain, advancing as if in slow motion, with the defiant look of someone who feels part of a dangerous gang under the orders of a single boss. Then the ball will reach their feet. And at one moment, everything will speed up.
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