YOU can simply scream your  heads off for Lionel Messi.

For the Argentinian super-striker, it’s more than a dream come true. 

He’s now the youngest (18 years 357 days against Serbia & Montenegro in 2006) and the oldest (35 years 155 days against Mexico)  player to score and assist in a single World Cup since 1966. Little wonder, he was voted the best player in Qatar.

Former Malaysia Cup defender Matthew Chin hails Messi as “someone close to impossible to match”. He added: My generation can’t compare him to (Diego) Maradona because Messi is simply extraordinary.”

THIRD TRIUMPH

Sunday was Argentina’s third World Cup triumph and the first since Mardona won it for them 36 years ago in 1986 in Mexico. After nearly a month of action filled with exemplary surprises and stunners across 64 games, 172 goals and the dramatic final completed, you just shake your head in disbelief. Just look at the statistics:  

Golden Boot Winner 2022: Kylian Mbappe (France) – 8 goals in 7 matches; Golden Ball Winner 2022 (Player of the Tournament): Lionel Messi (Argentina) – 7 goals and 3 assists in 7 matches; Golden Glove Winner 2022: Emiliano Martinez (Argentina); FIFA Young Player Award: Enzo Fernandes (Argentina) FIFA Fairplay Award: England.

Total Goals Scored: 172 Fastest Goal of Qatar 2022: 2nd Minute – Alphonso Davies for Canada vs Croatia; Most Goals Scored: France (16 goals) in 7 matches; Least Goals Scored: Belgium, Denmark, Qatar, Tunisia, Wales (1 goal); Best Defence: Tunisia (1 goal conceded) in 3 matches; Worst Defence: Costa Rica (11 goals conceded) in 3 matches; Hattricks: 2 – Goncalo Ramos (Portugal) vs Switzerland, Kylian Mbappe (France) vs Argentina.

May I significantlly add congratulations to Qatar, having hosted the world’s first desert-terrained World Cup, something thought unimaginable, by football standards.

Sunday’s final between France and Argentina was genuinely a showpiece. In my opinion, in probably the wildest final in the tournament’s 92-year history, Argentina won its third World Cup title by beating France 4-2 in a penalty shootout after a 3-3 draw. 

MESSI & MBAPPE

It featured  two goals from the 35-year-old Messi and an unusual  hattrick by his 23-year-old heir apparent, France striker Kylian Mbappé.

“It’s a very special final for a special occasion for Qatar which had brickbats thrown at them right from the day they first won the World Cup bid,” said award-winning former Singapore coach  Jita Singh, 74, who spent more than a month in Doha. 

“Qatar has truly proved its critics wrong. A small state that is capable of successfully organising the world’s biggest sporting event, after umpteen setbacks on and off the field. Just unbelievable.”

Hats off to Qatar, having hosted the world’s first desert-terrained World Cup, something thought unimaginable, by football standards.

* Suresh Nair is an award-winning sports journalist who is also a qualified international coach and international referee instructor.

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Say what you like about the 2022 World Cup held in Qatar but it produced some amazing football, especially in the nail-biting final. The clash between Argentina and France, the defending champions was filled with nail biting tension.

It looked like a forgone conclusion with the Argentinians leading by two goals to zero until the dying moments of the game when French star, Kylian Mbappe produced two goals in the dying moments of the game and then proceeded to match the goal by Argentina’ s captain, Lionel Messi, thus forcing a penalty shoot-out.

Messi’s greatness

While the result was heart-breaking for the French, the victory was a nice send off for Mr. Messi, who is hailed as one of the greatest players ever (GOAT) and yet, somehow the biggest prize in global soccer always seemed to elude him.

Unfortunately for Mr. Messi, he’s from the country that gave us Diego Maradona, who is considered one of the Gods of modern soccer. So, for all his achievements at the club level, the inability to bring home soccer’s greatest prize meant that as far as most Argentinians were concerned, Mr. Messi was a shadow of Mr. Maradona.

So, for Mr. Messi, this victory was a key moment for him to come out of Mr. Maradona’s shadow and there is no doubt that as this is being written, that life in Argentina is being focused on him. It took a glance at an article in the Atlantic for me to understand that Mr. Messi’s triumph goes beyond soccer.

The writer makes the point that Mr. Messi’s moment of greatest success comes at what is effectively the dying days of his playing career. Mr. Messi is 35-years-old, which for a professional athlete is geriatric. Yet, despite his age, Mr. Messi remains a force of the field and more importantly, Mr. Messi has managed to do what very few superstars have managed to do – he’s evolved and ensured that whatever success is more than just about him. At 35, he’s not as fast as he used to be but he’s grown wiser and smarter in his playing style and how it gels with the rest of the team.

There is no doubt that there are geniuses in just about every field who can make the difference between success and failure. In modern soccer, there was the example of Diego Maradona who not only led Argentina to victory in 1986 but managed to bring an inferior team to the final in 1990. In rugby union, there was the example of the late Jonah Lomu, who cut through everyone’s defence like a heated rod going through butter.

However, modern team sport is about strategy and while have a genius of the field can make the difference, there is a danger of becoming over reliant on the single guy. After 1986, every team that faced Argentina had one clear strategy – contain Diego Maradona. In rugby union, Mr. Lomu made headlines in the 1995 World Cup until he reached the finals and the Springboks developed a strategy called – contain Mr. Lomu.

Unfortunately for Mr. Messi, the strategy used against him in so many world cups were the same as the one used after 1986. From the day the press started hailing him as the world’s best player. Everything was about containing him.

So, for this world cup, Mr. Messi made his team greater than himself and his contribution was that of a brilliant conductor brining out the best in people rather that single virtuoso. At 35, Mr. Messi wasn’t going to go toe-to-toe with the 23-year-old Mr. Mbappe. He was going to use his team. Mr. Mbappe’s hat-trick was undoubtedly phenomenal and he deserves the Golden Boot award for most goals scored. However, the ultimate prize is not the Gold Boot but the World Cup.

This point isn’t limited to soccer. I think of a law firm I was trying to solicit business from. The Managing Partner made the point his goal was not to become the star performer but to ensure that the cases went to the right lawyers in his firm and that all his lawyers would grow become better lawyers thus ensuring his firm produced good quality work.

Yes, super stars in business are good to have just as they are in team sports. However, businesses that have a strategy of working around a single star have a way of vanishing when said star no longer performs like a star or retires or dies. Stars also have a way of forgetting that the things that made them successful don’t last forever.

As the writer of the Atlantic article points out, just as Mr. Messi understood that at 35, he had to evolve and be the best 35-year-old player, his Portuguese rival, Cristiano Ronaldo was trying to play as a man ten-years younger and failed at it. Nobody doubts that Mr. Ronaldo is a great player but at 35 he isn’t as sharp as he was at 27 and its particularly noticeable at the highest levels of international competition.

The same can be said of people stuck in old paradigms and try to operate as they did a decade ago. Technology changes, people change and the market changes. What was great a decade ago may no longer be great in the current situation. So, as one should always be self-aware and evolve in order to stay great as Mr. Messi did.

* Suresh Nair is an award-winning sports journalist who is also a qualified international coach and international referee instructor.

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This famous song “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina” became something of an anthem when it was performed by Madonna in the 1996 musical film Evita. 

Now 26 years later, it sounds so shockingly appropriate.

Whatever adjectives you use, you’d be absolutely lost for screaming words as underdogs Saudi Arabia scored one of the biggest World Cup upsets ever by beating Lionel Messi’s Argentina 2-1.

Simply unbelievable!

Poor Messi. His quest to win the one major title to elude him got off to a shocking start and brought back memories of Cameroon’s 1-0 win over an Argentina team, led by Diego Maradona, in the opening game of the 1990 World Cup.

BIG-HEARTED SAUDIS

When Argentina scored with a 10^th-minute Messi penalty, it simply looked a foregone conclusion…a possible rout in store, like Iran getting shell-shocked 6-2 by England. 

But the big-hearted Saudis fought back and goals by Saleh Alshehri and Salem Aldawsari in a five-minute span in the second half gave this unimaginable win. 

Believe me, this Argentina loss rivals other World Cup upsets like Senegal’s 1-0 win over titleholder France in the 2002 tournament opener and the United States beating England by the same score in 1950.

It’s hard to ever think that Argentina’s 36-match unbeaten run ended at the Lusail Stadium in Messi’s fifth — and likely last— World Cup.

SPORTING MESSI

But Messi, the Paris Saint-Germain star striker, was sporting at the final whistle. He  shook hands with a Saudi coaching staff member and stood with his hands on his hips near the centre circle, an all-too-familiar scene for one of the best players ever, who is yet to win the biggest prize in soccer.

For the record, Argentina‘s results at the FIFA World Cup ranks as one of the most successful national football teams in the world, having won two World Cups in 1978 and 1986. Argentina has been runners up three times: in 1930, 1990 and 2014. In 19 World Cup tournaments, Argentina had 47 victories in 82 matches. The team was present in all but four of the World Cups, being behind only Brazil and Germany in number of appearances (with the 2022 edition included, to be played).

Now sorry tears may well in your eyes for Messi and Argentina. You ask: How will they now pull back and make it out of this group?

* Suresh Nair is an award-winning sports journalist who is also a qualified international coach and international referee instructor

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The football fans are fixated on who is the greatest of all time in the soccer arena with the duel between Cristiano Ronald and Lionel Messi entering its last global phase, perhaps.

Nonetheless, Ronaldo and Messi are the only two popular and talented players in our era who have never won the World Cup.

While it is true that Portugal is not a large team with many talented players that can easily claim the title of World Cup winner, the same cannot be said for Argentina, a country that has produced two World Cup victories so far.

Argentina has reached the World Cup final on four occasions. It was defeated by the Uruguay national team way back in 1930, which is the inaugural World Cup competition.

However, Argentina produced excellent football in the competition winning by big scores and establishing Guillermo Stábile, an Argentine professional football player and manager who played as a centre forward during his career, as the top scorer of the 1930 World Cup, scoring 8 goals including a hattrick.

Alas, it lost the final against the gritty Uruguayans with the match ending in a 4-2 win for Uruguay.

Argentina was also defeated in two other finals, in 1990 and 2014, against Germany and the latter went on to win those two finals by 1-0. In 1990, it was the last appearance for maestro Diego Maradona.

But Messi’s country produced two great final victories against the Netherlands in 1974, winning 3-1 in a display of magical soccer between the two opponents (Netherlands had the father of modern football Johan Cryuiff in its squad) and beating Germany in a thrilling 3-2 final giving Maradona his only World Cup final win.

While Messi lost in the first ever final in which he participated in 2014, Ronaldo’s Portugal never reached the final though the troubled Manchester United superstar has played in 4 World Cups since 2006.

Who Will Smile at the 2022 World Cup?

We wrote that Ronaldo is a player who sets precedence and sets the tone for styles and goal scoring prowesses. This is so true for the great player and he is also the first to win a ‘regional’ trophy with his country when Portugal won its first ever Euro Championship in 2016, beating France 1-0 in the final after extra time.

It was Ronaldo’s most important national trophy, leaving the World Cup as the only major international trophy he has yet to win.

The star is going through the most turbulent and disturbing period in his football career and his coach at Manchester United is not helping the player with his dictatorial style and his bullying of one of the greatest soccer stars of all time.

This is not going to help Ronaldo in Portugal’s search for a place in the final at Qatar though we know that the latter cna rise to the occasion if he can put all his woes behind him and focus on the football on the field.

A great performance by Ronald at the World Cup will make Eric Ten Hag look like a fool. But Ronaldo is going through pain and this may, unfortunately for his fans and for football, Ten Hag is contributing to a potentially bad World Cup for the latter.

Ten Hag has- sadly –  never played in any World Cup and is already seen as a troubled coach at Man Utd. The 6-3 defeat against Manchester City and the 4-0 drubbing against Brentford are two big dark spots in his managerial career at Old Trafford. Another misstep with a drubbing by a small club or a big one for that matter may mean Ten Hag could see the gate wide open for him to be excluded from the club.

Why sadly? He does not know how precarious it is to be a player who is going to play in a World Cup. If he knew, he would have been more careful in his choices with Ronaldo.

Nevertheless, Lionel Messi is not facing such worries and the Argentinian ace is in the running as one of the top rated players who may perform well in Qatar.

Messi has announced that this may be his last call for Argentina in the World Cup and that he may retire as an international soccer player, meaning he might not play for his country again after Qatar 2022.

Ronaldo has responded to Messi’s plans for retirement from international football by saying he hopes Messi would reconsider and would continue to play as long as he can because he believes the latter is a great player with great capacities.

This is how Ronaldo is. He encourages his opponents to carry on and to perform in order to bring brightness to the most beautiful game on the planet. Unlike some people.

Messi’s World Cup?

Among all the stars in Qatar, Messi will undoubtedly be looked upon as one of the greatest and he will become the greatest versus Ronaldo if Argentina reaches the final and wins.

Messi too started his World Cup appearances in 2006. Unfortunately, like Ronaldo, he has been putting more emphasis on clus football – which brings them more cash – than national football.

Unlike people like Pele for example, who played for their country with the same grit and enthusiasm when they played for their clubs – Pele won many club titles and World Cup finals at the same time – it does not appear the same for the modern ‘Peles’.

However, Messi has a chance now and if he forgets club soccer for a while, perhaps he may spark a riot at the World Cup and bring the trophy home to Buenos Aires and consecrate himself as the GOAT of our generation.

Messi has scored six goals in 19 matches at the Fifa World Cup spanning four editions. Argentina is a bigger soccer country than Portugal, though Portugal has also produced aces like Ronaldo and the once thrilling Eusebio whose team beat Pele’s in the 1966 World Cup.

Ronaldo has scored seven goals in 17 matches at the FIFA World Cup, scoring in every edition he has played in – 2006, 2010, 2014 and 2018.

While Ronaldo has advised Messi to continue playing in the World Cup or at International level for a few more years, this year may be his last World Cup.

But depending on his spirit and where he is playing after he leaves Manchester United – unless Ten Hag is kicked out of Old Trafford earlier than January 2023 – Ronaldo may still attempt to give Portugal another shot at the World Cup in 2026! Imagine that.

Nevertheless, it is a pity that none of them have lifted the World Cup trophy, just like the legendary Cryuff who re-invented football with his total soccer styles, reached the final in 1974 and lost to Germany by 2-1.

Cryuff missed the World Cup in 1978 which saw the Netherlands reach the final only to be defeated by host Argentina by 3-1. He did not participate in the World Cup for obscure reasons but in 2008 he revealed why he did not play for the country in 1978.

He told the media that there was a kidnapping attempt on him and his family and that shocked him and while he escaped the attempt, it changed his perspective on life.

Hence, Messi is the best placed in the Qatar 2022 versus Ronaldo who is going through a difficult time, to go and win the cup for once!

THE ‘M versus M’ will be the most talked about confrontation in the final match of Qatar’s World Cup on Sunday (11.00pm)..

Messi v Mbappe on Sunday.

Two outstanding celebrity stars, Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappe, who are team-mates at Paris Saint-Germain.

But never two winners. Or for the matter, twolosers.

Only one will return to the French capital happy.

Both have scored five times en route to the final, with Messi in particular growing in influence the deeper Argentina have progressed at what is his last World Cup.

They will have a big say over who hoists the trophy, the searing pace and devastating finishing of Mbappe up against the mesmerising close control, precision and vision of Messi.

QUICK TRANSITION

Three of Messi’s goals have been scored from the penalty spot, while all five of Mbappe’s have come from open play — mainly the result of quick transitions where France are at their most dangerous.

Now can Argentina exploit France’s achilles’ heel on the left side?

Messi produced one of the moments of the tournament when he danced down the right wing, twisting Josko Gvardiol inside out, before pulling back for Julian Alvarez to seal Argentina’s 3-0 victory over Croatia in the semi-finals.

That Messi was able to have his way with one of the best defenders at this World Cup suggests France’s left side will be an area Argentina will attack with regularity.

FREEDOM TO ROAM

Mbappe has been given the freedom to roam for France but very rarely does he get back to help out defensively, a point Didier Deschamps addressed by bringing on Marcus Thuram against Morocco with France protecting a 1-0 lead.

In my opinion, Theo Hernandez is a more dynamic left-back than his injured brother Lucas, but it could allow Argentina right-back Nahuel Molina — set up by Messi for the opening goal in the quarter-final against the Dutch — to push forward as well.

Another big mystery: The virus concerns in France squad.

France left Adrien Rabiot behind at the team hotel for the game against Morocco, while Ibrahim Konate replaced Dayot Upamecano in defence after the pair experienced “flu-like” symptoms in the build-up.

Deschamps downplayed concerns over Upamecano, who was well enough to sit on the bench, and said Rabiot “should be available” for the final.

But there was surely growing unease at the illness spreading through the squad when Konate, Raphael Varane and Kingsley Coman all sat out training due to illness.

DICTATE PLAY

“There is little bit of flu going around but nothing serious,” said Randal Kolo Muani, scorer of France’s second goal against Morocco less than a minute after coming on as a substitute.

Will Griezmann continue to dictate play?

Mbappe and Olivier Giroud have combined for nine of France’s 13 goals, but Antoine Griezmann has flourished in a playmaking role in midfield — his diminishing strike rate offset by creative output. Griezmann is third on France’s list of all-time leading scorers with 42 goals, the last of which came over a year ago in an 8-0 rout of Kazakhstan.

With injuries forcing Deschamps’ hand, his decision to deploy Griezmann in a deeper position has worked wonders, with the Atletico Madrid star now focused on supplying the frontmen.

Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni opted for a compact four-man midfield against Croatia, limiting the time and space for Luka Modric to effectively strip the opposition of their main weapon.

The talking point: How will his plan to nullify the threat of Mbappe and Griezmann work in this grand finale match?

Pray tell me: What’s your call? Will this match go to mandatory penalty-kicks to decide the new world champion?

* Suresh Nair is an award-winning sports journalist who is also a qualified international coach and international referee instructor.

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