If Hollywood wrote football, nobody would buy the script.
A kid from a Buenos Aires slum grows up to become the greatest player on earth. He cheats with one goal, scores the greatest goal ever seen four minutes later, wins the World Cup almost single-handedly, becomes a global icon, and then spends the rest of his career trying to outrun the ghost of his own masterpiece. Too much. Needs editing.
Then comes a shy Frenchman of Algerian descent who wins his country’s first World Cup on home soil, retires as a national saint, only to decide eight years later that the most memorable way to conclude one of football’s greatest careers is to headbutt an Italian defender in the chest before millions of television viewers. The screenwriters would be fired.
And then there is Lionel Messi. Football’s resident overachiever somehow managed to spend almost fifteen years being told he hadn’t really proved himself because he was missing one rather inconvenient piece of silverware. Never mind the Ballons d’Or, the Champions League titles, or enough goals to crash several record books. Somewhere, every conversation eventually reached the same smug conclusion: “Yes… But can he do it at the World Cup?”
Only the World Cup could convince the planet that Lionel Messi had something left to prove.
That is because the World Cup is not really a football tournament. It masquerades as one every four years, complete with tactical discussions, fitness reports, and statistical models. In reality, it is the world’s largest storytelling festival with football attached. It has less in common with a league season than with a Greek tragedy. The heroes arrive carrying impossible expectations, fate intervenes with almost theatrical precision, and by the time the curtain falls, nobody remembers the expected ending anyway.
Football leagues reward consistency—the World Cup rewards timing. One mistimed tackle, one deflected shot, one penalty that clips the post instead of nestling inside it, and history quietly edits your obituary.
Take Diego Maradona.
We remember 1986 as though it were an extended highlight reel. The Hand of God. The Goal of the Century. The little man was weaving through England as though defenders had been placed there merely for decorative purposes. By the time Argentina lifted the trophy, Maradona had stopped looking like a footballer and started resembling one of those mythical figures who appear once every few generations to remind everyone that genius is often gloriously irrational.
Naturally, football decided that wasn’t dramatic enough.
Four years later, Maradona returned for an encore. Because sequels are fashionable until they are not. Argentina somehow stumbled into another final, held together with tactical discipline, exhausted legs, and whatever remained of Maradona’s magic. This time, there was no miracle waiting. West Germany won. Maradona cried. The king discovered that football has no loyalty to yesterday’s monarchs. It applauds you on Sunday and begins auditioning your replacement on Monday.
Then came Zinedine Zidane, perhaps the only footballer capable of making elegance appear casual.
France had spent decades searching for a footballing identity worthy of its cultural confidence. In 1998, Zidane solved the problem with two headers in the final against Brazil. It remains one of football’s great ironies that the most graceful midfielder of his generation became immortal by scoring with his forehead. France celebrated as though history itself had decided to wear blue for the evening.
Eight years later, Zidane returned for what everyone assumed would be a respectful farewell tour. Instead, he dismantled Brazil, glided through Germany, chipped a penalty in the final with breathtaking audacity, and appeared to be writing one of sport’s perfect endings.
The World Cup, however, has a strict editorial policy against perfect endings.
So it inserted Marco Materazzi.
One exchange of words later, Zidane introduced his forehead to the Italian’s chest with considerably more conviction than he had introduced it to the Brazilian goal eight years earlier. Red card. Long walk. Italy lifted the trophy. Every retirement montage ever produced now includes that headbutt. Somewhere, Shakespeare probably nodded in approval.
Which brings us, inevitably, to Messi.
Poor Lionel Messi. Imagine being so astonishingly gifted that the only criticism anyone can invent is that you have merely conquered club football. For over a decade, he lived in football’s strangest courtroom, where every spectacular performance was admitted into evidence before the judge solemnly announced, “Interesting. But where is your World Cup?”
He reached the final in 2014. Lost it. Reached Russia in 2018 with an Argentina side that appeared to have been assembled five minutes before kick-off and lost again. The verdict arrived with exhausting predictability. Wonderful player. Wrong tournament. Next case.
Then Qatar happened.
The funny thing about destiny is that it usually arrives several years after television pundits have declared it impossible. Messi, at an age when footballers are expected to endorse luxury watches and reminisce about their prime, produced perhaps the most emotionally satisfying triumph the sport has witnessed. Argentina won what many now regard as the greatest World Cup final ever played. Suddenly, the debate disappeared, almost overnight. It turned out the argument had never really been about football. It had been about narrative closure. Once Messi lifted the trophy, everyone finally agreed to stop pretending that one tournament could define an entire career.
Or at least that was the plan.
The World Cup, being incapable of leaving well enough alone, has invited Messi back once more. Because apparently five World Cups were insufficient for the scriptwriters. He remains central to Argentina’s ambitions, continues to rewrite record books, and somehow keeps extending a career that has already outlived several footballing generations.
Which raises an irresistible possibility.
What if Messi’s story finally curls back towards those of Maradona and Zidane?
Maradona won the World Cup and then lost his chance to defend it.
Zidane won the World Cup and then lost his final.
Messi lost before he won.
What if his last chapter is another defeat?
It would be entirely appropriate. Not because football owes him disappointment, but because the World Cup has never been interested in flawless heroes. Flawless heroes are tedious. Human heroes sell television rights.
Look through the tournament’s history, and the pattern repeats itself with suspicious regularity. Ronaldo Nazário collapsed into heartbreak in 1998 before returning to conquer the world in 2002. Roberto Baggio became immortal not because of the goals he scored, but because of the penalty he missed. Kylian Mbappé won the World Cup in 2015, then, in 2022, scored a hat-trick in the World Cup final and still finished with a runners-up medal. Somewhere, the football gods keep rejecting straightforward scripts in favor of stories that require therapists.
Perhaps that explains why the World Cup continues to dwarf every other sporting event on the planet.
It is not simply because billions watch it. Billions watch other things too.
It is because every four years the tournament persuades us that football is really about destiny disguised as sport. We pretend to analyze formations and passing networks. Secretly, we are waiting for the next plot twist. We do not merely watch matches; we wait for myths to be written.
Somewhere in North America, another young footballer is already taking his first steps towards becoming the hero of 2030. He probably imagines that the World Cup is about lifting a trophy.
He will learn soon enough.
The trophy is merely the prop.
The story is the point; the story is the legacy.
The writer is a Political and International Affairs Analyst (former professional athlete, sports writer, and enthusiast)
The writer is a Political and International Affairs Analyst (former professional athlete, sports writer, and enthusiast)
