Messi will become this Sunday the footballer with the most appearances in the World Cups, with 26. What follows are five key moments in his career in this competition.
In Essen, 10 kilometers from Gelsenkirchen, in the German Rhür basin, Thursday June 16, 2006 was a holiday. A procession brought together half the population, the Catholics. The albiceleste team was hosted in Essen for the World Cup at that time, but the Argentine parish was not up for parties. The debate was about the ownership of a Messi who was before his debut in the World Cup. There was a certain climate of hysteria. Thats weird. The selector, José Pekerman, faced a battalion of questions about whether Leo was going to start. “In Argentina they came to say that my son was hospitalized. My family was crazy and they started calling me. They have been pseudo-information. He is perfect, with great desire. He will end up playing. You have to be patient," the player's father, Jorge Messi, explained to this newspaper.
He was not only there to play, but he played and "broke" it, as his father had also predicted in a chat with this newspaper. She didn't start out but only in a quarter of an hour she left her stamp. He came on for former Spanish player Maxi Rodríguez, gave an assist to Hernán Crespo and scored the last goal of the match after a pass from Tévez. Argentina beat Serbia and Montenegro 6-0. Messi couldn't be happier that day in gray Gelsenkirchen.
Four years after his first World Cup, Messi arrived in South Africa as one of the best soccer players on the planet. European champion in 2009 with Barça and capital footballer of Josep Guardiola's almost perfect project, a Maradona, mythologized as always and who always had to be the protagonist above his players, awaited Leo at the helm of the albiceleste. With the bearing of a patriarch, he was the center of almost all eyes and the axis of all the controversies and statements. As a coach he was a fiasco and Argentina was thrashed by Germany in the quarterfinals 4-0. Messi ended up crying in the locker room. In the South African World Cup, the Rosario did not even see the door.
At the age of 27, Messi arrived at the World Cup in Brazil in full condition, although his year (that of Tata Martino) had not been the most buoyant at a collective level in Barcelona. But Argentina, which had footballers in vogue like Ángel di María, was burning stages. With suffering, as against Switzerland, or the Netherlands, which they eliminated in the semifinals on penalties, but ultimately with success. Messi played in the first World Cup final of his career. In front, again Germany, his executioner in 2006 and in 2010. The setting, ideal. Nothing more and nothing less than the Maracana, the temple of a Brazil beaten by the Germans. All of Argentina was throbbing in that game and tens of thousands of Argentines camped in Rio de Janeiro waiting for the title. But that afternoon at the Rio de Janeiro coliseum Germany also defeated Argentina. History could have changed if Gonzalo Higuaín had materialized a great assist from Messi, but it failed. In extra time, a goal from Götze decided and Messi was left broken and without a cup.
The beautiful city of Kazan, capital of Tatarstan, was a cemetery for the giants in the 2018 World Cup. Neymar and his Brazil fell there against Belgium in the quarterfinals, for example. But days before, in the round of 16, it was the turn of Messi's Argentina, which was swept away by a cyclone. Rarely has an exhibition been seen on a football field like the one starring a beardless Mbappé against Messi. Two goals and a penalty caused by Mbappé broke the Argentine resistance (4-3). The albiceleste, with the histrion Sampaoli in front, fell in one of their few decent games in the championship. It was almost always a nervous team full of anxiety. The coach did not exactly help to pacify the environment.
The leading and most mature Messi has managed to take his group of boys to the final, the second of his career. With five goals and three assists, the Argentine is playing the best World Cup of his life. Protagonist, foreman and admired by his colleagues, Leo is finally admired in his land. His play beating center-back Gvardiol in the semifinals, on the right wing, as if he were that kid they had to stop with kicks, is already part of the annals of football. This Sunday he will try to put the icing on the cake.
