The 2022 World Cup witnessed one of the greatest finals in the history of this tournament. Argentina went from 2-0 up to 2-2 to 3-2 up to 3-3 before beating France in a penalty shootout. With so much happening throughout the match, ESPN India attempts to pick out the one moment that defined the day’s action.
For day 22, for this final day of action from Qatar, it’s a touch of rare genius from Lionel Messi.
It starts innocuously enough, with Theo Hernandez taking a throw-in deep in Argentina territory. The ball’s received by Kylian Mbappe, who controls it and spins in one smooth motion — only to be denied progress by a combination of Cristian Romero and Nahuel Molina. The ball rolls to Emiliano Martinez who hoofs it to the centre-line, where Dayot Upamecano smashes it right back, gifting it to Molina. A first-time pass to Alexis Mac Allister and another first-time pass forward, and the ball’s at the feet of Messi.
As he receives the ball on that left foot of his, back to the opposition half, Messi does something only he can on a football field: he stops time.
That first touch should, by all rights, have stopped the counter dead in its tracks. When everyone’s pelting forward, who bounces the ball up in the opposite direction? What could you possibly do after that? As the ball bounces, Raphael Varane halts his charge to Messi, waiting for him to control the ball and do something with it. Upamecano rushes in at an angle, before stopping, having seemingly blocked off his route to Alvarez. Aurelien Tchouameni, running with Mac Allister till then, pauses. So does Jules Kounde on the far side, running with Angel Di Maria. This is a Didier Deschamps trained defence, marshalled by one of the greatest defenders of our time, and they almost always know what they are doing. Almost. For a brief millisecond here, though, they are unsure.
Why has Messi bounced it in the air?
His teammates don’t stop to wonder. Mac Allister doesn’t stop running after he’s laid it off to Messi. Neither does Di Maria way out on the left flank. Alvarez immediately takes off down the right. There’s an implicit trust there, they may not know how, but this counter was on.
Before the match, Emiliano Martinez had called Messi Argentina’s secret weapon, and everyone had laughed. Secret? The man’s been the best player on any pitch he’s been on for more than a decade and a half now. Secret? Really?
Mid-bounce, time stopped, Messi then does something that suggests, ‘you know what… maybe Emiliano was right.’
Everyone knows Messi is the threat. But what can you do when he pulls off something that only he has the imagination to even conceptualise? The ball still in the air, he twists his left boot at a right angle and gently nudges it forward, onto Alvarez’s path. It looks an improbable thing to ask of the ball, to change trajectory and velocity and angle so abruptly, but when Messi asks like this, his best friend always listens.
And off go Argentina.
Alvarez plays a lovely ball forward to Mac Allister, who rolls it superbly to Di Maria, who finishes with the calm panache of a proper clutch player. 2-0, Argentina. It had all started with those two touches. Touches so simple in theory, touches that came so early in the move, they weren’t even captured as still images.
Even if that piece of magic went surprisingly under-the-radar, the goal it produced would define the game for the vast majority of it, pegging France back. Before it all exploded into life: the ice-in-veins magnificence of Mbappe. The fight and eerie calm of Messi. The all-out, match-saving brilliance of Emi Martinez. The pure tension of the shootout. The glory of the instant where Messi finally got to kiss that elusive trophy.
This last ‘moment of the day’ of this 2022 World Cup, though, could only be one thing — the moment Lionel Andres Messi showed the world just he can do when he is on his A-game, just what he can do when he speaks with the football a language only the two of them truly understand. A Messi moment that encapsulated what this World Cup of Messi has been all about: a celebration of his rare genius.
