After Tuesday, Lionel Messi will never wear the sky-blue-and-white of Argentina again. It’s just a footballer retiring. Yet why does it feel so heavy—even all the way over in India?
The entire world knew well in advance that his career was coming to a close. Everyone cheering him on or even rooting against him at the World Cup final in July knew that was the last time they were seeing him play for his country in a major tournament. This ending is neither abrupt nor untimely. Eduardo Galeano once described a football idol’s time with his fans as “human eternity”. Messi had managed to make his eternity last more than two decades. But knowing that a goodbye is coming does not make it any easier. Especially this one.
The World Cup final itself was never the ending Messi deserved. That post-match image of him unsuccessfully holding back tears while his teammates brawled in the background was the anticlimax to one of the greatest sporting stories of this age. Yet, the tournament had given doubters enough evidence that Messi was the greatest player of the modern era, perhaps even of all time. As Argentina faced defeat against Egypt and England, he seemingly unleashed a mystical force that swung those matches back in his favour. It was as if when his mortal body reached its limits, something otherworldly gently goaded him past them.
And now, 85,000 people will gather at the Estadio Monumental in Buenos Aires to watch him play Benin, a match that will both be a tearful farewell and a celebration of his career. The stadium, where the River Plate club plays, lies next to the brackish waters of Rio de la Plata. On Tuesday night, these waters might be a bit saltier than usual.
His final bow is in stark contrast to that of his archrival and antithesis, Cristiano Ronaldo, whose international career may well have ended after a bust-up with his coach Jorge Jesus. Stars often die with a violent explosion and Ronaldo’s career is not the first to end in a cloud of controversy. It is to Messi’s credit that he has fashioned such a graceful exit to one of the most storied international careers.
In truth, Messi’s career was never just his. It also belonged to a generation of fans who grew up alongside him. When he trotted out on the World Cup stage for the first time in 2006 as a wide-eyed, long-haired boy, a generation brought up on the stories of Diego Maradona also had the world before itself. His goal against Serbia in his very first World Cup appearance confirmed what keen followers of the game and Barcelona had already known—that here was the true heir to El Diego, someone who had what it took to bring the world under his feet and keep it there.
That version of Messi existed in a simpler, more exciting time. He heralded a new dawn that felt all too real, especially to a young fan watching him from an Indian city, about to enter adulthood in a country that seemed ready to take on the world. We watched him beat player after player on television sets that were neither smart nor high-definition, and then discussed his feats with people over a hot cup of tea or a cold mug of beer. We listened to commentators sing paeans to his talent while shushing parents trying to refocus our attention on an upcoming exam or a job interview. There was, of course, a lifetime left to worry about all that.
From that point on, our stories diverged. The world started changing, often at breakneck speeds as we lived through wars, recessions, political upheaval and a pandemic. Life chipped away at youthful features, stole hairlines and left a few extra layers around the waist. The people we once discussed Messi with moved to other cities or countries. Parents, who had ordered us back to the books, were now grandparents. Through it all, we slowly became something we never set out to be.
But Messi remained the same. Sure, he too had sprouted a beard and covered his body in tattoos like a grizzled warrior. But all that was forgotten when he took to the field, for he played football just like that kid from 2006. And every four years, we all watched on in rapt attention as he took one more shot at slaying the dragon—winning the World Cup. The quest never changed, nor did the hero.
By the time he finally crowned one of the greatest careers of all time with the biggest prize in football, our worlds were but a distant echo of what they used to be. But as Messi lifted the World Cup in Qatar, many of us were transported back to where it all began, back among the people we knew and had lost, and back into memories that had started fading. This was our story too, as we were there when it began and through its many twists and turns.
And now, as we close the book on Messi’s story, we are bidding goodbye to a part of ourselves that lived alongside it. The recordings will remain, as will the compilations of his goals and accounts of his heroics. But can they ever recreate what it was like to exist in that moment? Can they recapture the feeling of witnessing something special and the anxious anticipation of what he was going to do next?
Maybe that is what makes this all so hard. The knowledge that, as Lionel Messi walks off into the sunset, we can no longer walk alongside him. Eternity has run out of time. All we can do is stand back and say thank you.
Vishnu Prasad | Senior football writer
(Views are personal)