Lucille. Football can be very easy, at least for the best.
Trust me, there are rainbows in Qatar too.
Leo Messi has carried his team all the way to the pot of gold in the finale.
This is where we’ve been going all along, and this is where we’ve always been going to end up.
Since the World Cup kicked off – or at least since Leo Messi scored against Mexico – Argentina have been the force around the entire tournament.
Other teams have sometimes played more wins on the road. Other countries may have a greater political and symbolic charge.
But none of them had the allure of hypnotically chaotic Argentina.
The blue and whites have encapsulated themselves in a football fairy tale, with their captain and their fans, their temper and their neuroses.
For us outsiders, it felt like they had embarked on an epic journey towards an unknown destination. A diverse group of friends – along with a wise old wizard – set out on an uncertain journey in search of the Lord’s Ring.
Even the warm-up technique has become a repetitive sight, which looks the same every time. Tonight too. With 40 minutes left until kick-off, the arena’s large screens flash, turning into live images from the players’ tunnel.
There they came – the Argentine players – lined up almost harmoniously in some form of an arrow. All dressed in an all-white warm-up suit, and in front, as usual, a clenched fist ready to battle Leo Messi.
He looked like the leader of some kind of righteous revenge mob, heading towards a dark, unknown night to set things right. It’s the closest soccer ball you’ll get to walking martial arts rings.
Just a man and his ball
The speakers began playing Rodrigo’s “La Mano de Dios” – one of Maradona’s most famous songs – and the players were so in sync that they ran onto the pitch in time for the first chorus.
game time. Bunga huevos.
Far on the other side of the great ocean – 1,350 miles away – the sky above Rosario was filled with a 200-square-meter Argentina national team jersey with the captain’s name and number on the back. A helicopter flew with her, dragging her into the sky.
It is sometimes said that Lionel Messi’s birthplace never embraced him, but that was at a very different time, one that now seems so far away.
A World Cup semi-final isn’t usually the kind of task you get in and clean up, but as a match, this one honestly lasted just over half an hour.
Then Dejan Lovren played simple one-man defense and a harmless long ball became a free center and he became a free position from the penalty spot.
And there again in front of the southern goal cage here at the huge Lusail Stadium was Leo Messi, the same goal cage he kept returning to throughout the month of the World Cup.
The same goal cage where he scored a penalty against Saudi Arabia, when it all first began. The same goal cage where he scored the penalty against Holland, before it was all over.
depress? Are you ready for a jerky bug? Throw the ball hard on the show and then we won’t discuss this anymore.
If the match hadn’t already ended, five minutes had certainly passed.
An eternal part of Argentine football legends is a dream electric tube From Potrero who turns away from it Gambetta – the little guy from the uneven sand court in the neighborhood who digs his head down and goes on a dribbling raid.
There are no tactical restrictions, no drill drill patterns, and really no rules. Just a player with his ball and will to challenge everyone else on the field on his own.
That’s what defined Argentine football in the 1950s – that’s what Diego Maradona and Leo Messi could do when they were young – but that, of course, won’t happen in the World Cup semi-finals in December 2022.
Julian Alvarez has just turned 22, but he still has acne on his face. At 170cm, he now launches into a one-man attack from his own half that can only end in two ways – either he clears the ball, or he runs it all the way towards the goal.
It ends with the most impure and unaesthetic dream goal of all time.
The ball is up and spins at the knees, bounces on the shin pads, the only dribbles are counter feints – but it doesn’t matter at all, on the contrary.
It’s one Argentinian dream goal.
This is the world of Leo Messi
At home on clay, it wasn’t about going over feints and elástico tricks – that’s what Brazilians do – but getting ahead at any cost and by any means necessary.
By the way, Leo Messi got an assist on this goal, but it was a performance that reminded a lot of the one that Hector Enrique gave Diego Maradona before his victory.
You may want to see one truly Preparatory work…?
Until this evening, 20-year-old Joshko Gvardiol was one of the best defenders in the tournament – young, strong and quick – but now 35-year-old Leo Messi received the ball with the Croatian on his back and darted away in a seniors’ dance for time.
He put Gvardiol out once, waited it out and did it again, eventually serving Julian Alvarez
The Argentine crowds in the stands were dusting off a victory song to which they had been a bit restrained so far, but now pumped forward unreservedly. “Que de la mano de Leo Messi, todos la vuelta vamos a dar”. If we only held Leo Messi in our hand, we would be able to run for glory.
The entire Argentine bench bounced along in cheers – with arms around each other – even though the semi-finals were still in progress.
WC final again after that.
Messi co-captained Argentina to the World Cup Final at the Maracana in 2014, but even though he was captain at the time as well, that national team was never his, but Javier Mascherano’s.
On the other hand, this is Leo Messi’s national team. This is Leo Messi’s championship. This is the world of Leo Messi.
We should all be so glad we’re in it, that we get to keep doing it for a few more days.
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