It's Beautiful and Messi

Been taking in a lot of the World Cup lately. To me it has always been one of the most special events on the entire planet. A thing we all experience as a collective. Timezones and streaming subscriptions be damned. A fleeting moment in time that creates legends and inspires generations. Each goal scored reverberating with an excitement so palpable you can start to feel it take physical shape around you. To commiserate through wins and losses with people who may not even speak the same language as your own. There's a lot of beauty in that.

Football or soccer I truly don't care what you call it but you must respect it. The beautiful game. When you sit down and really watch you'll start to see it.

There's a potential sequence waiting to launch at any moment. You can see the energy building and windows of opportunity cracking. They can slam shut just as fast as they open. Sometimes the game calls for urgency and other times it's patience that prevails. There's a chess match being played and once a team breaks through it is electrifying. Lightning can even strike the same place twice in this scenario. Not only on the pitch but deep in your soul.

As of yesterday afternoon the final match is officially set:

Argentina versus Spain.

Messi is back again in the World Cup Final for the third time against Spain's rock solid defense and young star Lamine Yamal. It just so happens that Messi posed with Yamal when the latter was a baby after his mother won the chance for him to be featured in a promotional charity photoshoot put on by UNICEF and Spanish sports newspaper Diario Sport for a calendar with other footballers. Messi was 20 at the time. The photo making the rounds is quite funny if not somehow foretelling a prophecy that this baby had been blessed by greatness:

If may also be foretelling how Messi plans to treat Yamal and the entirety of Spain's team as his children on Sunday.

Messi has made it to the World Cup Final in 2014, 2022, and now 2026. Pretty damn good. Now he's got the chance to go back-to-back by winning his second. He also has a chance to win the Golden Boot (most goals scored) this tournament. Even better. It's crazy because after losing in 2018 people thought he would be done. That there wouldn't be another chance to win. He's now 39 hitting brilliant crosses with his right foot in the 91st minute to create game-winning headers to send Argentina to the finals almost 10 years later.

Beyond the excellence of Messi and Argentina's late-game miracles, the tournament itself has been filled with amazing matches. And some shithousery of course but that was to be expected. What with FIFA being FIFA and Donald Trump trying to put his rotting fingers into everything so he can be in the spotlight at all times.

The shithousery started well before the tournament began when FIFA president Gianni Infantino made up a fake peace prize to give Trump. Like when you're in the grocery store and you give your screaming child a new toy off the shelves because you can't take it anymore. A little treat to distract. Except in this case Infantino is also a bit of a dickhead and not an exhausted parent.

It's because of said shithousery that it's probably best Belgium made team USA look like a high school team in the Round of 16. Had USA kept winning games after Trump decided to insert himself in the situation by asking for a player's suspension to be reviewed just days before the game there would have been a little filth on the situation. Especially since it worked. Striker Folarin Balogun was allowed to play. Although it didn't entirely work as it really pissed off Belgium and the rest of the football world. We kinda got what was coming to us. And I feel bad saying that because the players have nothing to do with it. But if they won then that man would take the credit. Just as he takes credit for stopping imaginary wars. A World Cup victory would have exploded the ego he is already drowning himself in.

My other World Cup grievances? A lot of bad VAR reviews and weird shit going on for sure:

• I demand justice for Croatia and Luka Modrić. That game should have kept going. Ball sensor be damned the ball was not touched and that last second goal should have counted.
• If the ball sensor works so well how did it not react when Norway's goalkeeper hit a camera wire above the field, stopping the ball mid-flight, which ended up creating a goal for England? Not a fan!
• Egypt also kind of got screwed by a suspect penalty call preventing them from being up 3-0 on Argentina. They'd go on to blow it in epic fashion as Argentina scored 3 goals in the final 13ish minutes to win 3-2. It was bananas.

But even with all the mess and bad calls and potential corruption, the World Cup has been fantastic. It always is. I'll miss it when it's over.

Here's my favorite goal/moment of the tournament so far. I doubt it will be topped, unless something crazy happens in the finals:

Down 2-1 in extra time against powerhouse Argentina and you pull this off. Incredibly clutch and bold to take a shot like that at that moment. You could feel the game rip open with this one. Look at the curl!! Then Cabral runs into the crowd and embraces his partner. How fucking cool.

Cape Verde came into the tournament ranked 67th in the world. They are the smallest country by population to ever make the knockout stage. They pushed potential champions Argentina to the verrrrry brink of defeat. They also held even with Spain–the other finalist, for a full 90 minutes in the group stage.

I stood up shouting when this went in. I felt something growing inside of my chest. It was an absolute banger tearing not only through the air but through the world's expectations.