There are players who will not return from this game. They will stay there at the end of the century. Names who follow their careers, win titles, will experience extraordinary emotions, but nothing compared to what they went through on a soccer field for more than two hours on December 18, 2022 in Doha, Qatar. It will be the game of their lives, the moment they will look back on: I played against Argentina against France on the 22nd. “I took a penalty.” “I was the one who got Messi’s goal from the inside.” “I came out in the second part.” There will be those who don’t need to introduce themselves when they are 80 years old. There will be an old man in a bar in Buenos Aires who doesn’t have to say, “I saved a goal in the last minute, then a penalty and I almost saved the rest.” An old man, on a terrace in Paris, who doesn’t have to utter an impressive sentence to introduce himself: “I scored three goals and one penalty in the shoot-out in this final and I lost.” And one more thing, in Rosario, that you don’t have to drop when you come to a place: “They say I’m taller than Diego Maradona.” They’ll give them the same face when they say it, like the boy in the Sorrentino film to whom Maradona makes it clear that he’s left-handed: “The whole planet knows you’re left-handed!”
Qatar, the world cup of shame achieved with bribery and corruption by a regime that crushes human rights and enslaves workers, thousands of whom died to build the stadiums, left in its wake a dream game, an impossible final, the best in the history of the Pokals And that, in short, is football. He has no feelings and provokes them all. In such a wild way that the first part of Angelito Di María, undoing Scaloni’s surprise in eleven, Koundé and melting France, seems like it was two weeks ago. Unbalanced hero of the game, lizard tail, fine in feints and overflow, at the end of the game nobody remembered if Di María played, who was Di María? Is there someone by that name? And who is this lady calling me “son”?
Argentina players hug after their team’s second goal against France. DYLAN MARTINEZ (Portal)
All because of a mad, confused and captivating player who scored an endgame in three minutes that had no story left. Messi had already scored, the typical beautiful move had already been made, a counterattack executed with the speed and coldness of murder, Sunday was already set, 10 minutes and walk before going to the cinema to watch a movie with you see partner, then you need to talk, things are not good lately, maybe you need to break up for a while. Two minutes, two goals, the final anthology, the shot of the beast. An extension. Another goal from Messi, well, let’s get dressed that we arrive at the cinema, there are two minutes left to the end. Another goal from Mbappé, wait we better stay, we can ask a Chinese and see something on filmin, every day I’m more in love with you, you mean everything to me, we should have a son, the third, and name him Lionel , correct? Does it seem original to you?
Argentina already has its third World Cup. Deserved, who would have thought that two weeks ago. Messi threw his team on his back when he passed out in slow motion against Mexico in the group stage, and then he already scored in the round of 16, quarterfinals, semifinals and scored twice in the final. Messi ended a historic debate in Qatar that had lasted for years and had to do with a deity, Maradona. It was actually an answer. A response that resonated around the world when Messi found out how much the World Cup weighed, as Diego ordered, and whose origins go back to the rhetorical question Maradona asked himself in front of Emir Kusturica: “Do you know which player it is would have? would I have been me if I hadn’t done cocaine? What a player we lost!” Messi replied the world football legend. With the Argentine shirt and with the 10, with his left foot, with the same trophy that Maradona lifted thanks to him in another unrepeatable World Cup, Mexico 86.
No, nobody will forget this match. It’s a huge footprint in football history. He confronted styles, old players 12 years apart, Messi and Mbappé, and on several occasions shared a lesson that is the engine of the story: things are never quite right, anything can go wrong at any moment, twist doesn’t have to be bad either , but go through life with a good keeper, fool.
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