Aimee
Lionel Messi had stood, hands on hips and shoulders slightly hunched, for almost two minutes while Bastian Schweinsteiger received treatment at his feet. The ball had been placed for a free-kick just outside the German penalty area and, with time effectively up, the nervous tension pouring from stands on to the pitch reflected the realisation this would be Argentina’s last chance to secure parity. One final opportunity. Up stuttered the man on whom a nation’s hopes had always rested to plant his right foot, swing with his left and send the ball arcing up over the wall but, excruciatingly for the Albiceleste, harmlessly into the crowd.
It was a moment that summed up Messi’s World Cup final. Actually, it encapsulated his tournament ever since that scintillating first-half display against Belgium in Brasília when he was billed as the inspiration sweeping this team to this trophy for the first time in 28 years. There was a puff of the cheeks in despair before a grimace tensed Messi’s jaw as he stared up at the heavens with the look of one betrayed, abandoned at the last.
Argentina had pinned their hopes on the little master emulating Diego Maradona on this, the grandest of stages, and yet there had always been two scripts his evening might have followed: one glorious, one desperate. After all, El Diez had conjured a winner for Jorge Burruchaga against this opposition at the Azteca in the 1986 final but, four years later, had been inconsolable in Rome as German players celebrated all around.
