An original version of the piece ran in the Kentucky Standard print edition on December 21st, 2022 and online on the 20th.

It was a fitting end to yet another exciting World Cup. Layers of drama. Narratives galore. And a final that kept fans on the edges of their seats.

Some could argue the spectacle Sunday was merely an elaborate showpiece meant as a passing of the torch. From Lionel Messi to Kylian Mbappe, teammates at Paris Saint-Germain, a French superclub bankrolled by the Qataris. One great to the next. Though, we’d be remiss not to note that Mbappe was already a World Cup winner–having won his first four years ago in Russia.

In the build-up to the tournament, Argentina were picked by some to win the whole thing. I certainly saw the appeal. This could be described as Messi’s John Elway moment. Like those Broncos teams of the late 90s, he finally had a squad with the skill sets and talent to help him win the biggest prize of all.

The 2022 edition was seen as Messi’s last chance at getting his hands on arguably the most coveted trophy in world sports. But, the Argentine team’s opening loss to Saudi Arabia made the case that like the previous tournaments, the midfield maestro from Rosario would go home empty-handed. Only one other team has come back from an opening group stage defeat and walked home champions–Spain 2010–and this Argentina squad looked nothing like the famed Furia Roja of twelve years ago.

In a tournament smack dab in the middle of a season with little time to prepare, anything could happen. Early on, talent was, so it seemed, immaterial. That opening loss, the one match they were certain to win, meant there could be no other missteps in the group stage. Even winning their next match wouldn’t guarantee anything, they would still likely need to win their final match if they wanted to guarantee knockout round football.

Then, like so many times for club and country, Messi, the diminutive artist who, as a child, was told he was too small to play the game, lifted the team on his shoulders and without hesitation, without bowing from the weight of a nation he carried La Albiceleste across the finish line.

He scored from nothing in the match against Mexico. El Tri punished for blinking. The tiniest of spaces too much to afford. Messi’s curated left foot firing the ball into the only possible window open for scoring.

And my word, that absolutely delicious pass to set up the first in their quarterfinal match against the Netherlands. It deserves its own place in a museum. The vision. The precision. The cheek. Simply sublime. Cutting out five world class defenders in one go. Unparalleled.

The normally demure graduate of La Masia, Barcelona’s famed youth academy, became increasingly vocal on and off the pitch. After the shootout win in the quarterfinals, he engaged in a hostile tete a tete with Edgar Davids and Louis van Gaal–neither side willing to back down. A few moments later, still amped up from the hostilities, Messi took aim at another member of the Dutch team.

‘Que miras bobo, anda para alla!’ He yelled out in the middle of an interview as he looked past the journalist asking him questions, pointing at Dutch goal scorer Wout Weghorst. ‘What are you looking at, fool, go away!’

My understanding is that Weghorst, who scored on that cheeky free kick play late in second half stoppage, and who now plies his trade in Turkey for Besiktas, was simply coming over to ask for a jersey swap. None of that mattered. The match, itself a classic, had become heated–17 yellows, several for players or coaches on the bench. Messi wasn’t having any of that nonsense. He was on a mission. Determined. Focused. And he refused to countenance any foolishness.

After the quarterfinals and the 3-0 demolition of 2018 Finalists Croatia, there should have been no doubt about the outcome on Sunday. It was hands down the best of the eleven finals in my lifetime. Most finals of any caliber are unfashionable affairs–boring, vapid, tedious– neither side willing to push for anything lest they be exposed to an attack from their opponents. Or one side so dominate that the match is merely a formality. In a tournament full of plot twists and high drama, it was a fitting end.

The best-of-generation debate should be over, too. With this last win, Messi proved undoubtedly that he’s far superior to Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo. It won’t end, though. Blokes in bars and pubs across the world will, filled with dutch courage, inevitably belabor the point. They’ll be wrong of course and anyone, even with several pints worth of alcohol pumping through their bloodstream, can simply point to the divergent experiences of these two at this edition of the World Cup to objectively prove the point.

While Messi carried his team on his back, Ronnie turned on his. It was the final chapter in an epic battle between selfless and selfish, artistry and physicality, genius and graft. One final moment that should leave no doubt.

There is yet another plot twist, though. We all believed this would be Messi’s international swan song, riding off into the sunset victorious, a final emphatic win punctuating his stellar career with Argentina. It seems the allure of playing at least a few more times as world champions was enough of a siren song to stave off the inevitable. And maybe, this would mean a slight pause in the passing of the torch–though, I believe it may have already happened.

One can only hope he finds a way to stay healthy long enough to make an appearance three and half years from now as the US, Mexico, and Canada play host for the next edition.

We’ll all be better for it.