Admit it, you have enjoyed watching Lionel Messi too. That trademark dizzying run, the low centre of gravity, the football under his spell, the shuffling feet, his markers with legs chock-full of lactic acid, close yet far away.
There was nobody quite like this. F**king pass the ball, will you? You’re not Messi. Nobody is. This is a guy who has spent the past 20 years pulling at the seams of defences, causing a plague of terminal neck-crick as defenders tried to keep up with the blistering pace, the magnetic feet, the quick changes of direction, the no-backlift passing, like some invasive alien organism disguised as a 5ft 7in normcore icon from Rosario.
If a footballer is defined by moments, Messi has, among many, the Boateng moment. In that Champions League semi-final against Bayern Munich at Camp Nou in 2015, Messi received the ball and then drove towards Jeremy Boateng.
It wasn’t even really a shimmy. There was no distinctive swaying of the hips, no dropping of the shoulder, or shifting left-right. Messi simply faked one direction and went the other. Boateng fell, becoming an instant meme, a highlight reel staple, renewable raw material for eyeball-cramming content.
#AD10S 🐐
𝙔 𝙜𝙪𝙖𝙧𝙙𝙤 𝙚𝙣 𝙢𝙞𝙨 𝙤𝙟𝙤𝙨 𝙩𝙪 𝙪́𝙡𝙩𝙞𝙢𝙖 𝙢𝙞𝙧𝙖𝙙𝙖
𝙈𝙚 𝙫𝙤𝙮 𝙚𝙨𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙖𝙣𝙙𝙤 𝙡𝙖 𝙥𝙧𝙤́𝙭𝙞𝙢𝙖 𝙟𝙪𝙜𝙖𝙙𝙖 https://t.co/zKNVwKT3XJ— 🇦🇷 Selección Argentina ⭐⭐⭐ (@Argentina) October 7, 2026
It’s worth noting that for a long time, great as he was at club level, Messi was quite unable to replicate his dizzying form on the international stage. He played five senior major tournaments for his country between his debut and the great Gotze defeat of 2014, always coming close enough but never quite getting there.
Not that his performances were particularly outstanding either. He scored 42 goals and provided 27 assists in 93 games for Argentina in that time, but even then there was always something missing, Messi not being Messi enough.
It wasn’t Barcelona, where he had the genius trifecta of Sergio Busquets, Andres Iniesta and Xavi to help him, his critics would say. Perhaps Messi would have been happier if he had been born Spanish.
#AD10S 🐐
⚽️ #Argentina 🇦🇷 3 🆚 Benín 🇧🇯 0
🗣️ Otro más. En su noche.
Quisiera que esto dure para siempre 🎵 https://t.co/gN10KPICGY
— 🇦🇷 Selección Argentina ⭐⭐⭐ (@Argentina) October 7, 2026
After two more tournaments where he lost narrowly again, Argentina beaten twice by Chile on penalties to win the Copa America in 2015 and 2016, Messi retired. “For me the national team is over,” he said. “I’ve done all I can. It hurts…”
His retirement lasted only weeks and after that nadir came the rise. There was defeat of course in 2018, Argentina crashing out early to eventual World Cup winners France, but then came unparalleled glory. His first Copa America was followed the next year by ultimate success in Qatar, where Messi scored twice in that final.
After that Messi was feather-light. This is a guy who has basically been living the last four years in zen mode. He had matched, and surpassed, his country’s greatest footballing hero in Diego Maradona, could claim the title of Greatest Of All TimeTM. He had completed football, had nothing left to win.
It is tempting to go on endlessly about Messi’s skill. This is a man who has displayed such distinction with the ball at his feet, who has for long seemed to operate in a parallel dimension where time is slowed down and space has no meaning, who seems to process reality differently. Again, there was nobody quite like this.
Even the way he walked without the ball was different, like an ambling tax accountant who somehow wandered onto a football pitch and was quite happy to watch the game from there. And then when he received the ball he quickly switched on to induce that cranium-whirring sense of anxiety in his opponents.
If Messi was an overwhelming force in football, he has in a way been demilitarising himself these past few years, walking slowly backwards to retirement. It has been a great two decades and this is ending. It really is over.
The last World Cup was a reminder once more of what a talent he was, competing even then at 39 with the elite younger players. It was always like Messi to pick the best moments, and it is hard to think of a better time and manner to bow out on the international stage than this, now. And as a ceremony, it was befitting, so emotional, so ordered, so perfect, so Messi-like.
