Moments after the referee blew for full-time in the Copa America final between Argentina and Brazil, Lionel Messi was on his knees. And the tears flowed. It showed what the moment meant for him; it also showed what it meant for Argentina’s footballers who ran en masse to envelop Messi in a hug. The absence of a senior international title had been weighing him down personally. At the Maracana on Saturday evening, that weight was removed off his shoulders as the Albiceleste won their first title since 1993. A long time for a football-mad nation. A longer time still for a country that has inarguably had the game’s greatest player competing for them since 2007. Messi has seen moments come and go. Messi has seen generations come and go. He had also seen his team flounder chances in three consecutive finals: the 2014 World Cup, and the 2015 and 2016 Copas America. Messi had even witnessed the wider Argentine society question whether he had the fire in him to play for the national team. All that evaporated after the team beat Brazil 1-0 in a match that will not be remembered for a long time. Not that Messi, who finished with four goals and five assists in six games, will care. He finally has the trophy that he longed for his entire career.
The result also brings into focus the larger point about how we define greatness. The 34-year-old Argentinian footballer, by any yardstick, is one of the greatest players of all time but the lack of an international title was held against him by everybody. But even if the result had gone Brazil’s way, it wouldn’t have changed his legacy in any way.
What next for Messi? With the weight of pressure off his shoulders, he will definitely captain his side at next year’s World Cup in Qatar (provided they qualify). Having last won the Cup in 1986, Argentina
will again look up to their talisman to give them another high before he walks away into the sunset.