The World Cup rigged-odon de horror
Note: As of writing, Argentina has yet to play Switzerland, and has not yet been eliminated from the World Cup
How desperate is Lionel Messi to hold the 6.17 kilogram World Cup trophy—of solid 18K gold with bands of malachite on its base—in his hands for another year? Just as desperate, it would seem, as FIFA president Gianni Infantino is to rake in as much money as he can for FIFA and the tournament’s sponsors from his Argentinian wunderkind headlining the finals of the 2026 World Cup.
A legacy of greatness
It has been said that this is most likely the footballer’s last World Cup appearance ever. Messi is now with Inter Miami—the US major leagues (or Saudi Arabia) where former star football players past their prime migrate to, kicking a few balls for an inordinate amount of money in front of a crowd of American spectators who insist on calling the sport soccer.
And he is turning 40 this year, an age where even the most celebrated of players are less fleet on their feet. Thierry Henry, David Beckham, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, and Wayne Rooney are just some of the sport’s greatest legends who opted to spend the twilight of their footballing years in America.
Messi wants to bow out of his last World Cup in glory. That’s understandable—every stellar footballer wants to leave a legacy of greatness behind them as they exit the global stage.
A deal with the devil
But the problem with Messi is that he appears to have made a deal with the devil—incarnated in human form this time in the person of Infantino—to repeat Argentina’s 2022 Qatar World Cup victory and make history as back-to-back champions, a feat only achieved by Italy in 1934 and 1938, and Brazil in 1958 and 1962.
To equal this record, he seems to be prepared to play dirty, smile at the referees when they favor him over the opposing team, and overlook his many obvious fouls, including those really sneaky hand jobs and deserving-of-red-card moments.
If the cheating allegations prove to be true, as was rampantly claimed during the Argentina vs Cape Verde and Argentina vs Egypt matches, not to mention the group stage games, would the price of victory really have been worth it?
Not the man he was
As it is, Lionel Messi will bow out of football under a cloud of suspicion, bolstered by the fact that FC Barcelona is currently in court facing corruption charges from the time he was the team’s captain. Moreover, the Argentinian Football Association stands accused of laundering hundreds of millions of dollars.
And guess who the captain of Argentina’s national team is?
There’s no doubt that Messi is one of the most phenomenal talents ever in the history of football. But the Messi who joined FC Barcelona’s junior academy as a young player with a growth hormone deficiency (that the legendary Spanish club offered to address, paying for all his medical expenses and for his family to relocate from Buenos Aires so that the young lad, nicknamed La Pulga, or The Thumb for his slight size), the Messi who shone with club throughout several historic seasons, the Messi much beloved by his teammates and indeed all the fans of the club, seems to have morphed into someone mean and nasty on the pitch and off.
But then again, maybe that’s who he really is. He always had that killer instinct when suddenly, magically, almost effortlessly, he would get that ball into the net (less reliably for penalty kicks though). And perhaps that instinct has been transferred to secret winks directed at referees and violent kicks to a player’s calf in order to steal the ball, to name a few.
The greatest disappointment of all
I met Messi once in Zurich at the star-studded FIFA World Player of the Year gala in 2009. Largely unstyled then—you could say he was in dire need of a proper haircut—he struck me as timid, even humble. We barely exchanged more than five words, but he appeared so unassuming next to his arch-rival Cristiano Ronaldo, who admittedly had more presence and sartorial flair, not to mention an extraordinary measure of cockiness.
As a diehard culé, or Barça fan, then, I naturally took a dislike to Ronaldo and the entire Real Madrid team. Yet seeing the 40-year-old Ronaldo accept Portugal’s World Cup defeat with tearful sorrow, humility, and grace, I could not help but feel some admiration for the Portuguese captain.
By this point, I’d also seen enough videos that portrayed Messi as smug and arrogant, ignoring the children clamoring for his autograph, or stepping carelessly on a Barça shirt a fan had thrown at him, while similar videos of Ronaldo showed him smiling and gracious, acquiescing to fans’ requests.
What a little precious princess Messi has turned out to be. And a Zionist on top of all that. At a time when children all over Gaza—dressed in their idol Messi’s frayed number 10 jerseys—are being killed by US-made bombs dropped by the Israeli army guided by Meta and Palantir, that is perhaps, I’m afraid, the greatest disappointment of all.
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