Испанийн шигшээ баг ДАШТ-ийн шигшээ тоглолтод Аргентиныг буулган авснаар Лионель Мессигийн дэлхийн аваргын замнал гунигтайгаар өндөрлөлөө.
Металаиф цэнгэлдэхэд болсон шигшээ тоглолт бүхэлдээ Испанийн давамгайлал дор өрнөв. Аргентин тоглолтын эхний 15 минутад Месси бөмбөгөнд ердөө нэг удаа хүрсэн бөгөөд тоглолтын туршид өрсөлдөгчөө хүчтэй шахаж чадсангүй. Ферран Торресын оруулсан гоол тоглолтын хувь заяаг шийдэж, Аргентины дасгалжуулагч Скалони багийнхаа ур чадварын дутагдлыг хүлээн зөвшөөрөв. Энцо Фернандес улаан хуудас авч талбайг орхисноор Аргентин тоглолтын төгсгөлийг цөөн хүнтэйгээр үргэлжлүүлсэн нь тэднийг улам хүнд байдалд орууллаа.
Тоглолтын дараа Месси талбай дээр ганцаардсан дүр зурагтай үлдэв. Тэрээр 2022 оны ДАШТ-д түрүүлснээр хөлбөмбөгийн замналаа нэгэнт өндөрлүүлсэн гэж үзэж байсан ч энэ удаагийн финал түүний хувьд хүнд цохилт боллоо. Месси АНУ-д болсон энэхүү тэмцээний дараа сэтгэл гонсгор талбайг орхисон нь түүний дэлхийн аваргын тавцан дахь сүүлчийн үзэгдэл байв.
Испаничууд аваргын цомыг өргөх үед Месси болон түүний багийнхан хөгжөөн дэмжигчдийнхээ өөдөөс харж зогссон нь сэтгэл хөдөлгөм агшин байлаа. Тэрээр Диего Марадонагийн адил нэг удаагийн дэлхийн аваргын цомтойгоор карьераа үдэж байна. Мессигүй дэлхийн аваргын тэмцээн цаашид бүрэн дүүрэн санагдахгүй гэдгийг хөлбөмбөгийн ертөнц хүлээн зөвшөөрч байна.
Дэлгэрэнгүй эх сурвалжийг харах
Эх сурвалжийг нээх ↓
Lionel Messi found himself surrounded.
Tens of thousands of fans looked down on him at MetLife. Billions were watching around the world. And yet he couldn’t look more alone.
When the World Cup final ended, the Spain dugout emptied. Substitutes ran on the pitch to celebrate with their teammates. Messi remained by himself, defeated. An Argentine Achilles. As was the case in the game, he could get no space. No sooner did the final whistle blow than they were on Messi like a flash. A high press up by the goal Argentina failed to score in. The cameraman and photographer captured a vacant stare.
Dejected, Messi began to sit down. He slipped off the boots Adidas had made special him, a pair called the Last Tango and although noise reverberated around MetLife the music stopped for Messi. His World Cup career apparently over.
Messi looks into the distance, his dream of a second World Cup ended (Photo: Tom Weller/picture alliance via Getty Images)
The physical vocabulary of his last dance was unmistakably Argentine. Since the knockout stages began, the constant threat of separation has loomed over every step Argentina have made. For six weeks there has been a palpable awareness that, well, this might be it. It was the case when Sidny Cabral curled in a stunning equaliser for Cape Verde, as it was when Egypt led 2-0 with 10 minutes to go and the 10-men of Switzerland took Argentina to extra-time. The ochoand gancho steps. Argentina in then out of the World Cup then dramatically back in again. Each time a rehearsal of the last time. A team and its captain always a beat away from losing each other, bound only by finger tips then suddenly back in a clinch.
Being present at an Argentina game in Kansas City, Miami, Atlanta and New York was to feel the imminence of Messi’s absence on this stage. The ausencia Carlos Gardel sang a melancholy song about.
The first player to reach Messi after the full-time whistle was Ferran Torres. The player he hoped to be. The match winner. Instead of consoling Messi, his Argentine teammates were embroiled in a brawl. Leandro Paredes threw a punch, bringing more indignity to an occasion already besmirched by Enzo Fernandez, whose sending off left a tired team shorthanded as they prepared to play extra-time for a third time this tournament. No fourth star twinkled for Argentina.
“We couldn’t compete head-to-head today when it comes to football,” Scaloni said. Messi touched the ball only once in the first 15 minutes. Unai Simon didn’t have a save to make until he fell on a cut-back in stoppage time of normal time. Argentina couldn’t get the ball. They got no nearer to Spain than the fans wearing their blue and white jerseys in the stands. As a result, Messi was as anonymous as the thousands wearing his No 10. His xG only 0.03.
As Rodri walked on stage to receive the player of the match award, chants of “ME-SSI, ME-SSI!” went up, the singers simultaneously in a state of denial and full-on support mode (a default setting for Argentines). Messi then led his team to receive their runners’ up medals from U.S. president Donald Trump. He then didn’t know where to go, lost, directionless, a 39-year-old pondering what next. As Spain lifted the World Cup, Messi and Argentina’s backs were turned. They faced their fans instead and Messi wept. A banner fluttered in the wind. It showed Messi and Diego Maradona. The caption: symbiosis.
Messi, like Maradona, has one World Cup win (Photo by Koji Watanabe/Getty Images)
Throughout the game the echoes of 1990 were unmistakeable. Argentina were champions then as they were going into Sunday’s game. In that final, Argentina didn’t register a single shot on target against West Germany but were hanging on for extra time — desperately, cynically — until they conceded a penalty, converted by Andreas Brehme in the 85th minute. The 2026 final followed a similar pattern. When Ferran finally broke the deadlock, Messi fell on his back and held his head in his hands. He could sense it was over, that there would be no comeback this time even if Giuliano Simeone almost took the game to penalties, blasting over rather than into the back of the net.
As such Messi’s World Cup career seemed to end where Diego Maradona’s also ended at a World Cup in America. Granted he did not scream maniacally down the camera as Maradona did after scoring against Greece in Boston. He did not leave the tournament in disgrace and tormented by his demons, as Maradona did after testing positive for five banned variants of ephedrine following Argentina’s second group stage match, a 2-1 win over Nigeria, at Foxboro. Messi exited not amid exasperation. The only excess to speak of was love, gratitude, and the overwhelming desire for a different outcome.
Messi wipes his eyes as Spain celebrate on winning the World Cup (Photo: Hector Vivas – FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images)
F. Scott Fitzgerald once made the dare: “Show me a hero and I’ll write you a tragedy.” This was no tragedy. The night before the final, Messi posted on Instagram: “Whatever happens tomorrow, this group has already written a story we’ll never forget and that no one can erase.”
In 2021, Argentina won the Copa America for the first time in 28 years and then retained it. In 2022, they won the World Cup for the first time in 36 years and almost retained it. Outside an event in New York in the lead-up to the final, Messi was told: “Your career is like a video game—you keep unlocking new levels until you reach the end.” He replied: “I already completed the game at the last World Cup in Qatar.”
Even if Kylian Mbappe clinched the Golden Boot in the third-place play-off against England and surpassed him as the World Cup’s all-time leading scorer, many of the other all-time records in this competition belong to Messi. As he walked down the tunnel, nostalgia for a vanishing world set in. What will the World Cup be like without Messi? His sixth and likely last was mostly astonishing. When visas were revoked and red cards suspended he brought us back to football, delivering the World Cup from FIFA’s many sins.
Gianni Infantino can keep adding teams, but one thing is for sure. A World Cup without Messi will always feel less than whole.
