Happily Ever After
What a crazy game. I was on Team Messi all the way, and we won... barely.
That game was nuts. Maybe a little too entertaining. There have been a lot of amazing players that haven't lifted a World Cup: Eusébio, Alfredo di Stéfano, Michel Platini, Just Fontaine, Gabriel Batistuta, Cristiano Ronaldo. The list is too long really. But then there's Messi. He hadn't won a World Cup. You might say "Well it's a team sport; he can't exactly win a Wold Cup by himself." But that's basically what Diego Maradona did in 1986... the first World Cup I saw any brief bit of on TV. The first time I watched any non-Olympic sport on TV. I would remember more from the 1990 World Cup, but Diego Maradona remained a force of nature in my mind. And that long shadow of Diego Maradona has been continually cast over Messi's legacy for too long now. No, Messi didn't win the World Cup by himself. His teammates were playing way above their level. Alexis Mac Allister, who plays for Brighton & Hove Albion, was all of a sudden spinning and one-timing like he was Zico reincarnate. De Paul, really? It really seemed like a team win to me, and I'm glad Messi was on the right team this time.
