August 2005, an 18 year old Messi is sent off just two minutes into his international debut, away in Hungary.
December 2022, a 35 year old Messi lifts the World Cup trophy after setting the tournament alight, scoring a brace in the final as Argentina beat France 4-2 in a penalty shootout after a dramatic 3-3 match. It was arguably the greatest football match of all time, and definitely the best World Cup final. The Little Flea had his crowning moment in a career full of moments that any other player could only dream of.
Messi was dubbed La Pulgita (the little flea) by his older brothers when he was a child. A growth hormone deficiency leading to medical injections to help him grow. He was so much smaller than his opponents at every age group, but he was agile, with an indefinable dribbling style that made it hard for any opponent to stop him. As he became older and broke into the Barcelona first team he would become La Pulga, ‘the flea’.
Fast forward to today and Lionel Messi is widely regarded as the best player of all-time, or the second best player of all-time by all those Ronaldo (Cristiano) fans, who are wrong. There’s no easy way to describe Messi. He’s like an alien, a freak of nature, dropped into the human football field with super skills from another planet. The way the ball sticks to his feet as he dribbles, the feints, the chips, the nutmegs, he even scores with his head like someone much taller than his 5 feet 7 inches height.
Argentina hadn’t won anything since 1993. They had Messi, arguably the greatest of all-time, fail at his peak at international level. Losing the 2014 World Cup final to Germany you could see how distressed Messi was at the final whistle, what it meant for his teammates that they couldn’t win it for him. It felt like that was his moment to win an international tournament and wash the arguments away immediately. 2 years later, Portugal would win the Euros, giving more ammunition to Ronaldo’s fans that he was the greatest of all time and not Messi.
Then Lionel Scaloni took over as head coach of Argentina in 2018 and things changed. Messi relaxed and came out of international retirement. The team of stars all became a team to serve him. The old-fashioned mix of battling, commitment, and the sprinkling of star dust that Messi brings. Winning Copa America in 2021 lifted the pressure. That must have helped going into Qatar a year later.
He’s won countless trophies, La Liga, Champions League, Club World Cup, individual trophies galore, the Ballon d’Or 8 (EIGHT) times, the Pichichi (Golden Boot in Spain) 8 (EIGHT) times. He’s bamboozled the world’s best defenders and keepers for over 20 years now. Messi has scored over 900 goals, has over 400 assists. At the time of writing he is the all-time leading goalscorer at the Men’s World Cup after a fantastic start to the 2026 World Cup. He’s more relaxed than ever before.
But there was still a doubt about whether he could be the best ever prior to the 2022 World Cup. He had never won the World Cup. As much as he’d entranced the world with his magical skills as part of the greatest club side of all time, Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona side, he couldn’t match up to Maradona in Argentina until he’d lifted the World Cup for them.
He had scored only 6 goals prior to the 2022 World Cup. He was 35 years of age, and had an underwhelming season and a bit at PSG after a sensational move from Barcelona the year before. Was his time at the top over?
After the opening match in Qatar, the answer would have been yes. Messi scored, but one of the greatest shocks at any World Cup saw Saudi Arabia beat Argentina 2-1, the end of Argentina’s 36-match unbeaten run. It was the jolt to the system they needed, going on to beat Mexico, Poland, and Australia in the next three matches. A fiery encounter with Netherlands in the quarter-finals ended 2-2 and a penalty shootout victory with eighteen yellow cards brandished by the referee.
A routine, convincing 3-0 win against Croatia in the semi-finals set-up another final for Argentina. Another chance for Messi to become the definitive greatest player of all time.
Then the final against the World Champions France.
A hat-trick for Mbappe. A brace for Messi.
Penalties
The best match ever? Almost certainly the best World Cup final there’s ever been. And Messi finally had his moment to match Maradona, to have won everything as the star player for Argentina and the best in the world.
Argentina have now won the Copa America in 2021 and 2024 and best of all, the World Cup in Qatar in 2022. Messi’s crowning moment. A long way from the Little Flea.
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