You'll always be the greatest to the little girl who started watching football just because of you. For her football will always be Lionel Messi. Whatever the result is, you're my GOAT, forever and always
signing off
it is accurate to how I feel about this game too. After the final whistle blow I wasn't nearly as emotional as I thought I'd be, because of him. Because of how he reacted to the lose, with sadness but also excptence.
As a former Barcelona superstar it was kind of weird to see Messi on the other side of this style of game that is in his DNA. The Spanish strategy relaise on ball position, and passing the ball around. So almost every time that Argentinian player clashed, pushed or tackled going for the ball, the Spanish players acted like this is the first time they played like this, like they didn't approve this, and it's not part of the game. Argentina play more physical. They rely on players personal moves like stealing the ball, and dribbling. But they are not the violent offenders fake woke people like to call them (as if labelling Latin-american people as criminal savages isn't racism at allš”).
This game showed everyone who likes to blame their team losing on claims Argentina cheat, how to loss with grace. They took the yellows and the red, and the loss, without calling the game rigged, without starting conspiracy theories, and without encouragement of fans to this kind of un-sportmanship behaviour.
They know Spain controlled the game, and even though they tried to score until the end, Spain earned this win. For a long time while they were setting the stage, Messi just set on the ground, shaking players hands, and just processed everything they did. It wasn't until he went with the team to thank the fans, singing for him, that he started crying, and I started crying too. Like suddenly remembered he is 39, and can't do anymore the kind of game he just now lost to.
His game
I'm not ready for him to retire like that. But more than that, Argentina can't afford to go from playing around him, to playing without him at all. The smart thing to do is to let him gradually less minutes on the field. Bring him in the second half, so we could get a fresh yet old messi against younger players, that have already run around and are more tired, so that we could squint our eyes and pretend he aged back
