God of football’ Lionel Messi (Paris Saint-Germain) adorned the ‘Last Dance’ splendidly as he led Argentina to the World Cup victory after 36 years.
F Argentina lifted the championship trophy by winning 4-2 in the penalty shootout after facing France 3-3 in overtime in the 2022 FIFA Qatar World Cup final held at Lusail Stadium in Qatar on the 19th (Korean time). .
Messi, who had predicted that this tournament would be his last World Cup, finally solved his regret of winning the World Cup. Born in Rosario, Argentina in 1987, he started playing soccer at the age of four and achieved everything he could as a soccer player.
He reached the top of the European Football Association (UEFA) Champions League (UCL) four times, including 2006, 2009, 2011 and 2015 while playing for FC Barcelona in Spain. The Ballon d’Or, the world’s most prestigious football award, was also awarded seven times, from 2009 to 2012, 2015, 2019, and 2021. He also won the Spanish Primera Liga 10 times and the French Ligue 1 once.
For a while, he was also criticized for his sluggish performance in the national team compared to the club. After losing to Chile in a penalty shoot-out in the 2016 Copa America final, he was so disappointed that he announced his retirement from the national team.
Eventually, the Argentine people as well as then Argentine President Mauricio Macri tried to dissuade him and returned to the national team. Then, five years later, in 2021, when he won the Copa America championship, he relieved his hatred of winning a major competition in the national competition.
The last puzzle left to Messi was the World Cup. Starting with the 2006 World Cup in Germany when he was 19 years old, Messi has attempted to win the title four times, but all have failed. In particular, in the 2014 tournament in Brazil, they reached the final, but lost to Germany and had to be satisfied with the runner-up. The photo of Messi, who received the runner-up medal at the awards ceremony, staring at the championship trophy was selected as the best sports photo of the year.
Messi has declared that the World Cup in Qatar will be his last World Cup. Great attention was paid to whether Messi would be able to perform the ‘last dance’ in this World Cup. Messi struggled to unravel the world cup winner. In the first match of the group stage, he was humiliated by Saudi Arabia, but it turned out to be a good vaccination. Argentina, who kept their spirits up, went on a winning streak, and Messi was always at the center of it.
In this tournament, Messi showed off his outstanding skills by recording a whopping 7 goals and 3 assists. Despite being in his mid-30s, he showed off his Messi-like skills and stood tall as the top star in this World Cup. Not only was he responsible for two goals in the final, but he also did his part as the number one kicker in the penalty shoot-out. The top scorer was awarded to Kylian Mbappe (Paris Saint-Germain, 8 goals) of France who scored a hat-trick in the final, but the Golden Ball awarded to the best player of the tournament belonged to Messi of course.
Messi won his second Golden Ball in his career after Argentina’s runner-up in 2014. When he received the award for the first time, he was not happy at all, but this time he was able to fully enjoy the thrill of receiving the award.
With this World Cup victory, Messi has become the greatest player (GOAT) in the history of world football in name and reality. In the history of football, there were 8 players before Messi who had all of the Ballon d’Or, UCL and World Cups in their arms. Starting with Bobby Charlton (England) in 1968, Franz Beckenbauer and Gerd Müller (both Germany) in 1974, Paolo Rossi (Italy) in 1985, Zinedine Zidane (France) in 2002, Rivaldo in 2003, Ronaldinho in 2006, Kaka in 2007 ( Brazil) is the main character.메이저놀이터
However, Messi has something that the preceding eight do not have. That’s an Olympic gold medal. Messi won a gold medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics as a member of the Argentina national team. Messi’s record like this is expected to be a tremendous achievement that will hardly be broken in the future.