The Messi Effect

From Buenos Aires to Madrid, from Naples to New York, from Doha to Dhaka and Calcutta and Ouagadougou, today the world overflows with adoring fans.

On Sunday Messi will play his last world match and, however it ends, he has already won: it's been a long, long time —if ever— that a player hasn't received such global affection.

Such distant corners are overflowing with such different people, famous or infamous, who want Argentina to win, “not for Argentina but for Messi”, they clarify, as if it were necessary.

The character, it is true, is so kind.

A short boy, his eyes on the ground, who was about to fall down and was saved by some medicine: a small story that became great thanks to a twist in the script.

So kind: an almost shy boy who married his first girlfriend, is still a lord of his house, has three mischievous children with whom he plays ball, on the court he looks like one of them.

So amiable: his laugh a little weak, his teeth protruding, nothing in him that calls for distrust or envy;

a boy from the neighborhood who was luckier than the others, not the most admired person—most watched—on the globe these days.

In a world where so many of his very minor colleagues are dedicated to showing off the most operated blondes and the most

, he takes the boys to school.

Messi is an idol who does not behave like an idol: the anti-Cristiano, although now Cristiano has become humanized in failure and Messi, at times, Christianized in victory.

Even so, Messi never seems powerful like Mbappé, Haaland, Ibra and, of course, the hyper-

can .

Those who frequented him in locker rooms say that he used to impose his power without saying anything, with gestures and silences — but that he imposed it to the letter.

Now not anymore: now he speaks, and that made him more Argentine and less European —more brusque and less sneaky— and the Argentines love him en masse and some Europeans criticize him, but they are the least.

He is still so kind.

So so many millions, in rare unanimity, want, out of sheer generosity, the parable to be closed.

They look at the great winner as a victim: the one who has achieved so much but does not get what matters most to him, that would erase any doubt.

The one who won everything wants to win this one too, the one that would make him indisputable, and that makes millions who have never won anything pity him and accompany him in this search that sounds almost humble.

And those millions want, out of pure selfishness, that the parable be closed.

If Messi finishes confirming himself as the best player of all time - if he wins this World Cup on Sunday - we will be the ones who have seen it.

We will no longer be the ones who did not see Pelé or Di Stefano, the ones who barely saw Cruyff or Maradona: we will be the ones who saw the best.

We like nothing more than to applaud wildly: that shows that we were not wrong to come to this concert.

By clapping we are clapping ourselves.

That, in the world.

In his country it was more difficult.

For many years, many Argentines did not recognize Messi as one of their own.

After all, he had left so young and had never played there, so they made him ugly that he didn't sing the anthem, that he was a “cold chest”, that he wasn't Maradona, that he lost.

The change was consolidated last year, when he won the Copa América, but it had started in 2019, when he lost it and protested and mistreated referees and leaders and they punished him;

then they began to accept it.

And he followed that path, he became the absolute idol, the one for whom all this is done: millions of Argentines also want Argentina to win so that Messi can win, and they idolize him and forgive him —like true idols— all or almost everything: who does not want to live in their country, who defrauds millions,

that advertises the most retrograde kingdom in the world.

The man to whom everything stuck became Teflon.

And he, now, returns it with a game.

It is a recovery and a surprise.

A few years ago Messi stopped being the one he used to be on a court: it seemed that he did not want to accept that he was no longer that Messi.

For a time he was a man of a certain age who believed he was Messi and, when he believed it, he was wrong: he tried what he could no longer do, he lost many balls, he got tangled up.

The big change in this cup was that he finally came to terms with who he is: an absolutely extraordinary player who no longer has those abilities but, when he manages his remaining ones and uses them carefully, is still an intermittent prodigy.

And that, thanks to that, he convinced another 25 footballers to leave everything on the grass so that the poor short, toothy and smiling kid doesn't go down in history as the one who could have been the best but who knows.

The best magic of him, now, is to be that kind boy that everyone would like to help, that everyone helps.

Thanks to Him, for His love, his companions became a team: a gang that shares a goal.

In these years, in these changes, what changed was above all a proposition: if Argentina wins, it will be more for Messi than for Messi.

In other words: for the new Messi Effect, penultimate rabbit of the great magician.

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