To say that Lionel Messi has suffered during a career almost unmatched in the history of the beautiful game sounds foolish. This is after all a man bestowed with Painite-rare footballing gifts, discovered on junior pitches in Rosario, the football-mad town on the banks of the Parana River, some 300 km from Buenos Aires and honed and shaped at Barcelona’s La Masia academy, 10,500km away.

He is financially set for several lifetimes — riches beyond anything he could have dreamed of as a small child growing up in Argentinean soccer’s spiritual hometown.

Messi has won 37 major club trophies, the Copa America, seven Ballon d’Ors, scored 701 goals at club level and 98 at international level. He is regarded as one of the greatest, if not the greatest player, to kick a ball. And now he has a World Cup winners’ medal. It doesn’t sound like a career of suffering when put like that.

Lionel Messi of Argentina on the ball during the Fifa World Cup Qatar 2022 Group C match between Poland and Argentina at Stadium 974 on 30 November, 2022 in Doha, Qatar. (Photo: Richard Sellers/Getty Images)

Waiting and suffering

But Messi has spent 16 years suffering under the burden of carrying the hopes of his country and the weight of expectation that he would deliver the World Cup again.

Blessed and cursed to wear the No 10 shirt for the Albiceleste. With the number 10 shirt of Maradona, Messi is the demigod Argentina pinned its hopes on every four years since 2010. He might have won all the spoils the club game had to offer, but in the eyes of his nation and many soccer fans globally, only one title would fulfil his iconic career. 

The World Cup is an accolade Argentina, as a country, covets perhaps more than any other footballing nation. That led to Messi’s suffering. And to his fulfilment.

Until Gonzalo Montiel’s penalty hit the back of the Lusail Stadium net on Sunday evening, Messi’s suffering was ongoing. He’d done all he could. Two goals over 120 minutes — one from the penalty spot and another tap-in, as well as playing a huge part in the third goal during the match. He added another penalty in the shootout.

Diego Maradona of Argentina is tackled during the 1986 Fifa World Cup Mexico Final between Argentina and West Germany on 29 June, 1986 in Azteca Stadium, Mexico City, Mexico. Argentina defeated West Germany 3-2 to win the 1986 Fifa World Cup. (Photo: Paul Bereswill/Getty Images)

Messi had cajoled, scolded and inspired teammates, not only throughout the course of the nerve-shredding final against France but also over the course of a month in Qatar. And in the years leading up to it.

Yet, after 70 minutes of total Argentina dominance of the match and the scoreboard, France found a way to make him suffer some more.

The wonderful Kylian Mbappe slotted a penalty to revive faint French hopes after a match spent being outplayed. Even though his strike from the spot halved the deficit, the feeling that it was too little, too late, permeated the air.

But Mbappe, hewn from a similar granite mindset that produced the great Zinedine Zidane, never gave up. Players of his class only need a moment to change the course of a match, or a tournament, or even history itself.

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And while Mbappe was conjuring his moment, Messi was about to discover that his suffering was not over. In a rare instance of slovenly play, the impressive Kingsley Coman hounded Messi in a seemingly innocuous position in midfield.

Coman, who once scored a Champions League winner for German giants Bayern Munich over Paris Saint-Germain (PSG), the club of his upbringing, is no stranger to chasing lost causes.

In 2020 he felt no remorse in denying PSG their shot at Champions League glory, and in the white-hot heat of the Lusail in Doha, he dispossessed Messi in a crucial area of the field, at a vital moment.

In a blur, Coman worked to the left where Mbappe was waiting. Mbappe did what his entire life had prepared him for, and hammered home a glorious volley thanks to his supreme innate talent and talent’s best friend — hard work. The scores were level, and France were in command.

Lionel Messi of Argentina scores the team’s first goal via a penalty past Hugo Lloris of France during the Fifa World Cup Qatar 2022 Final match between Argentina and France at Lusail Stadium on December 18, 2022 in Lusail City, Qatar. (Photo: Clive Brunskill/Getty Images)

Epic journey

Messi had to suffer. A prize that had eluded him for so long, was never going to come to him via something as mundane as a comfortable 2-0 win.

Extra time. In a flurry Messi finished off a superb move, poking home a right-footed goal to ensure he had one hand on the trophy. Relief, joy and destiny awaited.

But like all epic journeys, the hero had to suffer some more. Mbappe, a footballer so gloriously gifted, so touched by the divine that it was inevitable he would have another say, had his say.

A second penalty converted after a shot struck Montiel’s elbow. It was a harsh decision, technically correct but in the cauldron of high emotion, seemed pernickety. Mbappe though, with a stone-cold killer’s instinct had no sympathy for Argentina, Montiel or Messi. He ripped a nerveless strike of scarcely human quality in such a high-pressure moment past ‘keeper Emi Martinez. France were level.

Mbappe and Les Blues rejoiced. Messi’s face, cloaked in bearded stoicism, was as immovable as an Easter Island statue, but inside he suffered some more. Millions of Argentineans, and millions more who simply love the beautiful game, suffered with Messi. No quest should be this hard, with so many plot twists.

But maybe all those previous disappointments and setbacks had prepared Messi, but more importantly, the Albiceleste for the moment. Suffer they would, but break they would not.

Lionel Messi of Argentina during the Fifa World Cup Qatar 2022 Group C match between Poland and Argentina at Stadium 974 on 30 November, 2022 in Doha, Qatar. (Photo: Richard Sellers/Getty Images)

Win it again

Argentina thought they had won the game twice during the 120 minutes only to be denied. So, they had to win it again in the penalty shootout. Lesser teams. Lesser men and lesser heroes than Messi would have faltered.

But destiny and greatness cannot be denied. Messi’s final legacy depended on it. He knew it.  He could control his legacy for a moment in the penalty shootout by slotting his spot kick, which of course he did. It cancelled Mbappe’s opening strike for France.

Messi’s job was done. All he could do was watch as his teammates and his adversaries slogged it out, to either end or continue his suffering.

But this Argentina team, built and designed by coach Lionel Scaloni with the objectives of sacrificing and working for the genius of Messi, knowing it was their only way to the Holy Grail, would not be denied.

Every Argentine player stepped up and executed his penalty while French players faltered. Messi had suffered and sacrificed enough to emerge from Maradona’s shadow. He had done all he could. He inspired a team and brought them within touching distance of immortality. But like all heroes on a quest, he needed help.

Lionel Messi of Argentina looks towards the Argentinian fans during the Fifa World Cup Qatar 2022 semifinal match between Argentina and Croatia at Lusail Stadium on 13 December, 2022 in Lusail City, Qatar. (Photo: Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)

And in those final, screamingly tense moments, his teammates ended the pain. The suffering was over. DM