MESSI MAGIC!
Picture: Reuters
He should be finished. Football’s cruellest law says so: no 39-year-old has any business dictating a World Cup. Nobody told Lionel Messi.
The little Argentine maestro has turned the summer of 2026 into one last, glorious middle finger to Father Time, and last night in Atlanta he produced the sort of stone-cold miracle that has made grown men cry into their beers from Rosario to Rawalpindi.
Two goals down. Eleven minutes left. Written off. Buried. Done.
And then: BOOM. Messi happened.
Picture: Reuters
FROM ZERO TO HERO IN FOUR MAD MINUTES
Egypt had done everything right. Yasser Ibrahim had nodded the Pharaohs in front early on, and when Mostafa Zico doubled the lead with a slick counterattack in the second half, the script seemed written. Argentina’s crown was slipping.
The great man himself had even seen a first-half penalty saved by the inspired goalkeeper Mostafa Shobeir, the kind of miss that would have ended a lesser player’s tournament right there and then.
Messi shrugged it off like a bloke swatting away a fly.
In the 79th minute, he teed up skipper Cristian Romero to head home. Four minutes later, with Egyptian hearts already pounding, he rifled in the equaliser himself, a first-time strike that had Mercedes-Benz Stadium absolutely rocking.
Then, deep into stoppage time, Enzo Fernández finished off a stunning counterattack to complete the greatest comeback story of this tournament.
Final score: Argentina 3, Egypt 2. Final verdict: don’t you dare write off Lionel Messi.
It’s now nine straight World Cup matches in which the great man has either scored or set one up, a run stretching back to the glory days of Qatar 2022. Eight goals at this tournament alone have made him the clear leader in the race for the Golden Boot, edging out Kylian Mbappé and Norway’s goal machine, Erling Haaland.
His overall World Cup tally now stands at a scarcely believable 20, two clear of Mbappé on the all-time list and closing in on football royalty.
Only Cristiano Ronaldo, with his haul of 146 international goals, stands above him on the all-time international scoring charts. Everyone else in world football is playing catch-up to a bloke who, by rights, should be enjoying his golf clubs by now.
MESSI’S SIMPLE SECRET
Speaking after Argentina had somehow scraped past a stubborn Cape Verde side in the previous round, a World Cup debutant that had the champions rattled for long spells, Messi remained typically humble. He pointed to the fighting spirit of his side, insisting that this Argentina team simply refuses to lie down, whatever the scoreline.
It’s the same story every time. Whether it’s a rampaging African underdog giving the champions the fright of their lives or a battle-hardened Egypt side inspired by their own talisman, Mohamed Salah, Messi and his teammates find a way.
The full-time whistle blows, and there he is again arms out, chest puffed, another chapter written into the history books.
His Inter Miami and Argentina teammate, Rodrigo De Paul, never short of praise for his captain, has spoken about what it means to share a dressing room and a friendship with a man who will go down as the greatest to ever kick a football. It’s the sort of devotion Messi seems to inspire wherever he goes from the terraces of Camp Nou to the sunshine bleachers of South Florida.
HIS LAST DANCE
Let’s not kid ourselves. Messi turned 39 during this tournament. This is his sixth World Cup, a record for Argentina, and every man, woman and dog watching knows in their bones this is almost certainly the last time we’ll see that number 10 shirt strutting its stuff on the biggest stage of all.
Argentina boss Lionel Scaloni has built his squad around several of the same heroes who lifted the trophy in Qatar four years ago, and the reasoning is simple: while Messi still has magic in those boots, you build the team to get the ball to him and let him work his wonders.
The stats back up the sentimentality. Messi has personally been directly involved in the majority of Argentina’s goals this summer — seven of the Albiceleste’s tournament tally in the group and knockout stages came from his own boot, with more created besides. Compare that to the supporting cast: big names like Julian Alvarez and Lautaro Martinez have struggled to get among the goals themselves, leaving it, as so often throughout his career, to Messi to be the difference.
It’s a burden that would crush most players. Messi carries it like it’s nothing at all.
FROM ROSARIO STREETS TO MIAMI HEAT
It’s been a wild old journey to get here. This is the man who left Argentina as a teenager, growth hormone treatment in his suitcase, to make his name at Barcelona, where he went on to smash every record going and scoop a cabinet full of Ballons d’Or. This is the man who finally got his hands on football’s biggest prize in Qatar in 2022, silencing decades of doubters who reckoned his legacy would forever have an asterisk next to it.
Since then, he’s swapped the Camp Nou for the sunshine of Miami, becoming the poster boy for Major League Soccer’s grand experiment to make football matter in America. Now, on home soil, with this World Cup being co-hosted across the United States, Mexico and Canada, Messi gets to write one final glorious chapter in front of American crowds who’ve fallen head over heels for him.
The scenes in Miami during the group stage, when Argentina played out in front of a heaving crowd, told their own story. Fans who’d normally be watching baseball or American football were singing his name. Little kids in Messi shirts. Grandparents who’d never seen a football match in their lives, glued to the telly. That’s the kind of pull the man has. Pure box office.
THE GOLDEN BOOT RACE HOTS UP
While Argentina’s title defence rumbles on, the race for the Golden Boot has turned into one of the great subplots of this whole tournament. Messi’s tally of eight puts him just ahead of Mbappe, with Haaland and England’s Harry Kane also lurking with menace. Every time Messi finds the net, it’s not just three points on the line, it’s a personal duel with the game’s other superstars for individual glory too.
It’s the sort of subplot tabloid back pages dream of. Old-timer verses young pretender. Genius versus genius. And with Argentina now safely into the quarter-finals, where they’ll face either Colombia or Switzerland in Kansas City this weekend, Messi’s got at least a couple more chances to pad out that tally further and put the argument to bed once and for all.
WHAT NEXT FOR THE GOAT?
The million-dollar question, given his Miami pay packet, is what comes after this. Will Messi hang up his Argentina boots for good regardless of how this tournament ends? Will he squeeze one more season or two out of those magic legs in MLS before finally calling time? Nobody knows for sure, least of all the man himself, who’s stayed characteristically tight-lipped on his long-term plans while the World Cup dream is still very much alive.
What we do know is this: whatever happens from here, Argentina fans, football purists and neutral fans alike have been treated to one final glimpse of pure, unfiltered genius. A player who, at an age when his rivals are commentating from cosy studios or grinding out testimonials, is still out there turning World Cup knockout games on their head with the last kick of the contest ticking down.
There’s a reason grown men wept when he lifted that trophy in Qatar. There’s a reason stadium the length and breadth of the United States have been turning purple and light blue whenever Argentina roll into town. Because everybody watching knows they’re witnessing something that won’t come around again. Not like this. Not from anyone else.
Picture: Reuters
The Last Magician Standing
Say what you like about the state of modern football: the money, the sportswashing, the never-ending calendar that leaves players running on empty. But every so often the game throws up a player who reminds you why you fell in love with the sport in the first place.
Lionel Messi, two goals down with barely ten minutes to go against Egypt, somehow found another gear nobody else on that pitch possessed. He dragged his country back from the brink with the kind of composure that can’t be taught, only born.
Argentina march on. The dream of back-to-back World Cups, something only Brazil have managed, way back in 1958 and 1962, is still very much alive. And at the heart of it all, still doing what he’s always done, is the little magician from Rosario who long ago ran out of superlatives to describe him.
Genius doesn’t retire quietly. Not this one. Not yet.
THE BACK PAGE VERDICT: 10/10. Simply the GOAT.
