Argentina's World Cup 'anti-futbol' means Lionel Messi pens a sad final chapter

Argentina's World Cup 'anti-futbol' means Lionel Messi pens a sad final chapter originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

As Spain's players tore off in jubilant celebration after goalscorer Ferran Torres, Lionel Messi reached down to fix his socks.

But it wasn't one of those "ooh, you won't like him when he's mad" Messi situations that we've seen so many times across these past two decades.

The great man simply looked like a man spent. His third World Cup final had been reduced to an exercise of grudging cardio under the New Jersey sun.

When extra time rolled around in the 2026 World Cup showpiece, Argentina's most recent attempt on goal was Lautaro Martinez's semifinal winner against England. Messi's touchmap was a deeply minimalist effort as he toiled and trudged on the margins.

And maybe that's his get-out clause, at the meaningful end of the greatest career the game has seen. Anyone with an ounce of self-respect would want to be on the margins of what Argentina produced in a 1-0 defeat at MetLife Stadium, because they were a disgrace.

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Argentina, the beautiful game and anti-futbol

Argentine football beguiles and baffles, enthrals and disgusts for so many reasons. And its story is so rich because of the foundational myths, the underlying stories that are a basis and reference for everything.

Messi is the final realisation of the most beautiful football we can conceive. But Argentinians will tell you they've always had the most sacred version of the beautiful game, one that belongs to the people, from the tangoing, wine-drinking, good-times everyman of River Plate's La Maquina side of the 1940s through to the pre-Messi highwatermark of Diego Maradona's imperial period.

One long-celebrated team in the proud history of Argentina's national side are their 1957 Copa America winners. Led by the fabulous, flamboyant forward line of Omar Orestes Corbatta, Humberto Maschio, Antonio Angelillo, Omar Sivori, and Osvaldo Cruz, they were an embodiment of the country's signature free-flowing attacking style that was dubbed la nuestra. After the tournament, River Plate defender Federico Vairo paid tribute to the five "sinverguenzas" (shameless ones) and "caras sucias" (dirty faces).

This was a nod towards Argentinian pride over their great players also having a sleight of hand where required. Being streetwise, the dark arts. Choose your euphemism. Maradona's Hand of God goal against England being closely followed by his Goal of the Century clattered the two elements together loudly.

The most memorable Argentine teams have been able to do both. Sometimes the brutality is the dominant strain, as with the deeply uncompromising Estudiantes side that won the Copa Libertadores in 1968 and retained it in 1969 to set up infamous Intercontinental Cup showdowns with Manchester United and AC Milan.

Argentina's first two World Cup wins entrenched the divide between the two camps. Cesar Luis Menotti, who favoured an attacking style where players could express themselves, was the champion coach in 1978. La Albiceleste defended their title poorly in 1982, and he was replaced by the arch-pragmatist Carlos Bilardo the following year. That version of the national team was fuelled by the magic of Maradona to win in 1986 before grinding to the 1990 final, where Pedro Monzon and Gustavo Dezotti were sent off in a dour 1-0 defeat to West Germany. 

Messi's ugly ending to a beautiful era

This battle between angels and devils propels Argentinian football, for better and worse. After heartbreaking near-misses in the previous decade, the 2020s rolled around with time ticking on Messi's inimitable career. There was a sense of purpose and mission to harness the madness.

Lionel Scaloni gradually built a side from the ashes of their 2018 debacle in Russia that was flawed but ultimately served to elevate Messi's still otherworldly gifts. He'd spent enough time carrying them on his back. 

There was joy to be found amid the suffocating tension of the Qatar 2022 campaign. Enzo Fernandez and Julian Alvarez emerged to lend youthful verve. Angel Di Maria produced an epic run of performances to help his great mate over the line. Messi dazzled, and they prevailed in probably the best World Cup final of all time against France.

Sifting through the murk of Argentina's risible efforts in the 2026 final, it's tempting to wish they'd left it there. But Messi and Argentina followed up their breakthrough 2021 Copa America triumph with another in 2024. And there was genuine wonderment as the master rolled back the years to plunder six group-stage goals in the United States, including an opening hat-trick against Algeria. His goal against Cape Verde in the Round of 32 was magical, the effortlessly perfect touch and finish the sort of thing that only Messi can do. In the last 16, he rifled a brilliant equaliser in the 3-2 comeback against Egypt and burst into floods of tears at fulltime.

That was his eighth and final goal of the tournament. The going became tougher for Argentina against European opponents. They needed extra time to beat Switzerland, came from behind as England lost their nerve in the semifinals and then faced up to a fresher and technically superior Spain team.

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At that point, Scaloni and his players opted to fall back on the darker chapters of the national playbook. Referee Slavko Vincic gave them enough rope. Alexis Mac Allister was inexplicably not booked for an early lunge on Dani Olmo and from that point Argentina pushed and prodded to get away with what they could — quite a lot, as it happened — as part of their plan to gum up Spain's passing machine.

All of which you'll just about expect if Argentina are offering some beautiful football to balance the equation. But they didn't; they couldn't. Spain wouldn't let them, so they eventually stopped wanting to try. Fernandez was sent off before fulltime as he pushed his yapping petulance too far. Leandro Paredes came on at halftime to steady the midfield but played as a small-time thug. If he'd got the red card he deserved, the Boca Juniors midfielder would not have been a main player in the ugly melee after the final whistle, which began when Nahuel Molina ran onto the field and thumped into Rodri. Spain's midfield lynchpin walked away with the player of the tournament award that might have been Messi's.

Just before that, Argentina's No. 10 briefly raged against the dying of the light. Messi started to pick the ball up in the areas where he does damage as Spain sat off in defence of their lead. He popped a lovely pass beyond Pedri to help win a corner, which was taken short before Messi nestled a cross on the roof of the net. He then unleashed a piledriving shot that Spain substitute Mikel Merino bravely wore clean in the face.

It must be noted that, at the end of regulation time, Messi tried to get Marc Cucurella in trouble with the referee for talking while covering his mouth. Even he wasn't above the nonsense, mainly because it was all Argentina had left at this point.

The sentiment as Spain's celebrations took off was of this not being a World Cup final to live long in the memory. That's just as well, because who would want to remember Messi being involved in a team trying to burgle victory through the back door in this manner? That's not to say it sours his legacy or his career whatsoever. Nothing could at this point. It's just a shame it had to end like this, scrambling desperately in the muck with the team that helped him to scale the mountain.