Last time for Lionel Messi

At 32, Barcelona’s top scorer is already a living legend of the sport. Before his career ends, he still has debts to make his legacy bigger. There will be football after him, but will it be the same?

Before the incessant discussion began about whether Lionel Messi is better than Diego Maradona, the Napoli idol himself predicted the beginning of a legend: “He feels the ball and that makes him different from the rest. I see many things about him, but that does not mean that he must be better or worse than Maradona. Lionel is going to be Messi by himself, with all the lyrics. ”

Lionel, who became Leo in Spain, was not born in a village, but like Diego, his only toy was a ball. “I started playing at the Grandoli club when I was four or five years old. Was baby soccer, and the coach was my old man. At seven, for my brother Rodrigo I went to Newell’s and I was there until I was thirteen ”, a young and charismatic Messi told him from La Masía some years ago to the now extinct magazine The graphic.

Since then history has been so necessary that it is known to anyone who enjoys ball. It was Carles Rexach, a Barcelona scout, who decided to secretly sign him on a napkin when he was 1.40 cm tall and Newell’s could not pay him the treatment of $ 900 a month that would allow him to overcome growth problems. For this reason, Jorge, his father, who made plans to go to work in a small province of Catalonia, before the refusal of River Plate and the Leprosy After paying him the treatment, he left without thinking too much for Barcelona, ​​with Lionel and a ball on his arm.

In 30 months he grew 29 centimeters, Messi himself would confess to Ronaldinho, his great godfather in his first years as a dressing room at Barça. He debuted at the Camp Nou in October 2004, replacing the Portuguese Deco in a match against Espanyol. It was not a simple change, it ended up being the moment in which the history of one of the most important clubs on the planet changed.

These days Messi turned 15 years old from his first goal with the Blaugrana shirt. Now, in this world permeated by addiction to numbers and data, the Argentine has been a vast dominator and record-breaker. Since that first goal for Albacete, at 17 years old, his records have already reached 627 points and with the enviable label of being the top scorer in the history of Barcelona. “How quickly time passes,” wrote the Rosario.

Messi has been par excellence the success of Barcelona in this century, and led the Argentina team that reached three consecutive finals: World Cup Brazil 2014 and Cups America Chile 2015 and United States 2016. Unfortunately for him, after being champion of the Under-20 world, in Holland in 2005, began to suffer the constant comparison with Maradona, and that without adding the one that has lived with Cristiano Ronaldo, another animal of the statistics and the game.

With flattery comes criticism and ever since his country’s jersey was put on, he has had to battle with rivals from outside and his own. “He has not won with the national team,” is the main claim. Something that is not true.

Messi conquered two titles globally with his country. In Holland 2005, where he was a scorer and best player, and three years later he was awarded the gold medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, with Di Maria attending for the 1-0 triumph against Nigeria in the final. “It is the same medal that Neymar was so highly praised when he won it at the Rio Games,” journalist Diego Borinsky wrote in criticism and defense. And although he has not raised trophies with the absolute, under his baton and directed by Alejandro Sabella, he fell in the final in Brazil 2014 against the Germans.

Without naming the award-winning career with Barcelona: 10 Leagues, 4 Champions Leagues, 6 King’s Cups, 8 Spanish Super Cups, 3 European Super Cups and 3 Club World Cups. Adding that he is the footballer with the most Golden Balls: six. A record that only leaves it up for discussion according to subjectivity and taste.

But he is precisely that, the liking of his football before it ends. Today Messi is 32 years old. It’s dad, his habits have changed. The injuries, a pubalgia that comes and goes, now exist and afflict a man who looked like iron. After turning 30 it seems that the life of a footballer began to go in reverse, as closer to the end.

He has a single challenge ahead for those who defend him: Qatar 2022. To understand the fragility of life is to understand the limits of all human actions. And to understand that is to understand that Messi will have an end, a last match. And Qatar is that, the last chance to stop fighting with its shadow in history. A world title would end the discussion of his superiority, that simple.

Soccer is soccer by people like Messi. Who will adopt his wake? There are always candidates: Neymar, Kylian Mbappé, and even João Félix, and others, but nothing concrete. The Qatar World Cup will be one of the places where Lionel gives his last dances. The circumstantial of life will tell if he could pay off the debt with the legend that he himself created. We will have to wait for the world to reopen to enjoy the last times of Lionel Messi on the courts.