By Tomas Ossa, Contributing Writer
The Argentinian star Lionel Messi showed his feelings days before the Qatar World Cup 2022 started. “It is a special moment since this is most likely my last World Cup, my last chance to get that big dream I have and achieve what we all want.” Said Messi
The FIFA World Cup takes place every four years, is the most-watched sporting event, and is taking place in Qatar from Nov. 20 onwards. This World Cup has a noteworthy value since it may be the last chance for some of the best players in the last decades to get the coveted trophy; some of these are Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar Jr, Luka Modric, Robert Lewandowski, and for many people the greatest of all times, Lionel Messi.
Lionel Messi is 35 years old and was born in Santa Fe Province in June 1987. Since then, everybody has known he was a special soccer player. At the age of eleven, he was diagnosed with a growth hormone deficiency, but his family did not have the money to pay for this treatment.
His soccer talent caught the eyes of FC Barcelona, who signed him and agreed to pay for his expensive medical treatment. After that, he made his professional debut in October 2004; the rest is history. He is the best player in the history of FC Barcelona, scoring 672 goals in 778 appearances and winning the Ballon d’Or six times plus one more time with his current team Paris Saint-Germain FC.
Even though he has won and achieved almost everything in his personal career with FC Barcelona, he has not been able to taste international glory with his national team.
His debut with the Argentinian National Team was in 2005, and since then, their World Cup performances have not been enough to be the champions, even though Argentina has gotten to the final stages.
In 2006, during Messi’s first World Cup, they were defeated by Germany in the quarterfinals; in 2010, Germany knocked them out again in the round of 16. In 2014 they has the most painful defeat against Germany in the final of the tournament, and the most recent failure was when they were kicked out by France in the round of 16 in 2018.
The pressure and failure overwhelmed Lionel Messi to the point he made the decision to quit the Argentina National Team after the loss in Copa America 2016 against Chile. Nevertheless, sometime later, he reconsidered the decision and came back to fight for his country’s soccer glory.
On the way to Qatar, Argentina had done decent performances in previous tournaments; they got to the 2022 World Cup with an undefeated streak of 36 games, and with the trophy of the America Cup won in 2021, making them one of the favorites to win the championship.
This favoritism went down after the first match of Argentina in the World Cup, which was disastrous. In their debut, they were beaten 2-1 by Saudi Arabia with a mediocre performance; consequently, the soccer world and Messi’s fans were heartbroken since they felt the dream and hope they had for Messi winning his last world cup vanishing.
Nevertheless, Argentina, hand in hand with Messi’s goals, has arisen from the defeat and has managed to pass different rounds. Messi is now the second-best top goal-scorer of the World Cup 2022 with four goals and has just been surpassed by Kylian Mbappe with five goals.
“Argentina had a rough start. It was difficult for them to score goals in the beginning, but I feel like now they are doing much better. Nevertheless, I think they need to be a little bit stronger defensively to really make it to the final,” said Angel Limardo, a senior majoring in computer science and a player on the men’s soccer team at Saint Leo.
With the help of Messi’s goals and the improvement in team performance, Argentina is now in the semifinals, where they will face the powerful Croatia that sent Brazil back home in the quarterfinals. All fans are waiting for Argentina and Messi to make it to the final and to win the longed-for and dreamed title of world champion. Messi is only a step away from achieving the World Cup championship with Argentina, and he would be free to retire knowing he won everything a soccer player can achieve.
