When it comes to the sheer quantity of individual attacking talents, this World Cup is hard to touch.
Certainly, it is the most we’ve had for quite some time. Having Erling Haaland, Harry Kane, Jude Bellingham, Lamine Yamal, Vinicius Jr, Kylian Mbappe, Ousmane Dembele and Michael Olise all at the same time is an absolute embarrassment of riches, and that’s just the headline names.
But even through all that, the top scorer, and the player who is most single-handedly pushing his team to victory, is still Lionel Messi, the Argentinian legend who turns 39 on Wednesday.
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Lionel Messi's GOAT credentials can wait for another day
Football discourse has grown tediously, fatuously obsessed with ranking everything in the internet age. What was once the preserve of spirited but ultimately empty pub debate has become the dominant mode of talking about the game. You only need to consider how the Ballon d’Or has been elevated from a minor Teletext headline to all-year-round Very Serious Business to understand how the culture has changed.
But even those of us who are resistant to that way of thinking would be given pause by what Messi has accomplished, and the possibility of what he might yet go on to do this summer.
Diego Maradona was permanently installed as one of the greatest of all time when he inspired a functional but otherwise largely undistinguished Argentina side to their 1986 World Cup triumph.
Messi could yet go on to do it twice in a row, at a time of his life when most players have already graduated into the pundit’s chair, coaching careers, or occasional appearances at overwrought major tournament draws.
There has been even more of a sense of inevitability than usual about Messi so far this summer. Of course he got a hat-trick in the opening game. Of course he broke Miroslav Klose’s record in the second game with a brace against Austria. Of course those goals have put him in pole position for the Golden Boot.
For all the feints, stepovers and turns he has successfully executed in his career, the greatest trick Messi has ever pulled off is convincing us all that this is all just to be expected.
Comparisons to Cristiano Ronaldo have long since ceased to even be a debate. That’s no knock on the Portuguese, who is two-and-a-half years older at a point in their careers where that makes an enormous difference.
But it’s also a total irrelevance at this point. To define Messi purely in comparison to his greatest rival has always been reductive to them both, but especially now. Why enter into a side-argument when the greater pleasure is simply in marvelling that Messi remains so brilliant, so relevant, and such a joy to watch?
Messi is already the player our grandchildren will talk about the same way that our parents and grandparents talk about Pele. We have decades ahead of us for nostalgia, rankings, ratings, and pointlessly trying to settle where, precisely, he stands on the podium alongside the very best players football has ever seen.
But we may only have the next few weeks, at best, to regard Messi in the present tense; certainly on this kind of stage.
Luxuriate in it while you can.
