We won’t say that Sunday is Lionel Messi’s last game at a World Cup, because we’ve been down that road before, only to reverse out of it in haste. Neither will Lionel Scaloni, Argentina’s coach, who met a question to that effect Friday by saying, “I haven’t the foggiest idea, to be honest.”
Messi could have exited this stage 3 ½ years ago after Argentina’s epic triumph in Doha, Qatar, and no one would have batted an eye. That was, indeed, widely expected. He could have treated MLS as a retirement tour, made bundles of cash and been revered as something close to a god in Argentina forever.
He didn’t. Well, at least not the retirement tour part. Not only has he led Inter Miami to championships and commercial success, he’s led Argentina to another Copa America title and all the way to Sunday’s World Cup final against Spain, the third of his career. Saying this is about his legacy would be like saying Anna Karenina was about Tolstoy’s legacy — 11 years after he’d written War and Peace.
“He’s pure history,” Scaloni, the only player to pass to Messi before the latter was sent off in his international debut in 2005, said of perhaps the only athlete on the planet for whom that sentiment is entirely appropriate and correct. “A legend. And being able to reach a final at 39 years of age, I think it’s something unbelievable, and that is why I said we must enjoy him.
