Given the stakes, the storylines associated with it, the late drama, and the size of the global audience, the 2022 FIFA World Cup final between Argentina and France may go down as one of the best soccer games of the 21st century – perhaps of all time.
During the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, when sporting leagues and events were cancelled around the globe, I got my soccer fix by watching old World Cup finals that I could find online, dating back to the 1960s. Games like the 1966, 1974, and 1982 FIFA World Cup finals are still lauded as being some of the biggest and best soccer games of all time. So I watched as many as I could find.
But I don't think those historic fixtures hold a candle to what the world witnessed on Dec. 18, when Lionel Messi finally stamped his legacy as being arguably the best soccer player of all time, with a spirited performance to help Argentina win this year's (admittedly controversial) world cup in Qatar.
I've watched Lionel Messi play for nearly two decades, starting with a random Barcelona game I saw on TV in 2004, when he got subbed in for the last 10 minutes as a scrawny 17-year-old. I remember watching his short cameo and thinking, 'Hey, he's pretty good.'
Fast-forward through the years, the fleet-footed Argentinian maestro went on to score goal after goal, break record after record, and win title after title with FC Barcelona. After four consecutive Balon d'Or awards in his early 20s (the award given to the best soccer player of the year, as voted on by European sportswriters) Messi was already added to the conversation of the best players of all time, up there with the likes of the Brazilian Pele and Messi's Argentinian compatriot Diego Maradona.
But what Messi lacked was winning a world cup – a tournament Pele won three times and Maradona once. Messi had come close in 2014, making it to the final with Argentina, before losing to Germany. Even then he was voted the tournament's best player – an award many people felt was undeserved, given he hadn't scored in the knockout stages of the tournament.
After a lacklustre 2018 World Cup for Argentina that ended in a round-of-16 elimination, it seemed Messi's quest of winning a world cup was passed. He was 31 years old in 2018 and would be 35 by the time the next world cup rolled around in Qatar. Surely he'd be past his peak by 2022, right?
Nonetheless, Messi rolled back the years in Qatar, scoring seven goals (admittedly four of which were penalty kicks) and producing some memorable assists to help Argentina win their first world cup trophy in 36 years.
Finally, in the view of hundreds of millions of soccer fans around the world, Messi had cemented his legacy as the best ever to play the sport.
