Why Messi matters

I hope that the Argentinian national team (also known as Lionel Messi) will win its third (or first?) World Cup on Sunday. But even if it doesn’t, the team’s legendary number ten has surely achieved that rare and precious accolade – earned by Pele in 1970 and Maradona in 1986 – of so dominating a World Cup that it will forever be linked to him. With respect to the supercharged Kylian Mbappé this has been Messi’s tournament. And you can be sure that, win or lose, the world’s media will be focused on him when the game ends.

Messi’s ‘last dance’ as it has been dubbed (appropriately, as he has the footwork and grace of Carlos Gardel) matters because he is an extraordinary and rare individual in world sport and we should cherish his final moves on the greatest footballing stage of all.

So impactful on the field – and yet quiet and modest off it – Messi has, at times, seemed an almost liminal figure.