It was Reggie Jackson who once said, \u201cI didn\u2019t come to New York to be a star. I\u2019m bringing my star with me.\u201d So, too, does the great Lionel Messi bring his star with him on Sunday afternoon, across the Hudson from the city, when and where he will once again be the biggest attraction in soccer, on his sport\u2019s biggest stage, likely for the final time now that he is 39.<\/p>\n
In so many ways, in Messi\u2019s version of football, he tries to do what Tom Brady did when he was 43 years old and won his last Super Bowl with the Tampa Bay Bucs. Not only did Brady remind everybody just who it was they were watching that day \u2014 on his own Super Sunday \u2014 he distanced himself from the rest of the field, all the other all-time greats of his position, even more than he already had. In addition to everything Messi has done in the World Cup before this one, this is why he tries to do against Spain in this final:<\/p>\n
To establish himself, with a second World Cup, as the undisputed king of his time in soccer, the way Pele \u2014 who won three World Cups \u2014 was once considered the king for all times.<\/p>\n
Cristiano Ronaldo has retired from international competition. Neymar has announced his retirement from the Brazilian national team. Kylian Mbappe, the star of the French national team, is more than a decade younger than Messi and already has 20 World Cup goals to Messi\u2019s 21. But France just lost to Spain in the semifinals, getting good and shut out in the process. So Mbappe will have to wait for the second Cup that Messi tries to win in the Meadowlands on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Somehow Messi came to the United States, after all the goals he scored for FC Barcelona and all the winning he did with them, and got to Miami and Inter Miami CF and to Major League Soccer in this country, and became as much of a rock star as he had ever been in Europe. He did what he always did, not just in Barcelona but across all the other World Cups he\u2019d played before this one:<\/p>\n
He made you see the magic in him and in his game. And he made you want to watch every move he made.<\/p>\n
It does not mean that his Argentina team is some sort of lock to beat Spain; that it is some sort of team of destiny even after the way it came behind against England in the semifinals, on the day when England was trying to make it to their first World Cup final in 60 years. Spain\u2019s defense \u2014 especially its spacing \u2014 has been both brilliant and annoying to watch across this run of their own, as they have made it practically impossible to score against them. Sometimes when they\u2019re on defense it looks as if the team with the ball is the one playing a man short. They can look like the soccer version of the old \u2014 and annoying \u2014 trap defense of the New Jersey Devils. They stick to you, and to the ball, like ticks.<\/p>\n
It was, in fact, laughable after they did defeat France to see the outcome labeled as some sort of upset, whether the opposition had Mbappe or not. No, it wasn\u2019t. The surprise would have been France going up against Messi and Argentina in Jersey on Sunday afternoon.<\/p>\n
The two teams left standing are the two best. With everything Mbappe has done in his own young career, Messi is still the best player, still the star of the whole thing, still the one to watch even at his age. Pele did win his three World Cups. But if Messi does it again Sunday, four years after winning his first \u2014 if he does get his second \u2014 it will seem like more than that, just because this event has gotten bigger because everything seems to get bigger in the modern era.<\/p>\n
It would have been some story if Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham had taken England to this final. But the final would not have been the same with Messi. The little man remains the leading man of the whole thing, doing things with the ball you have to see to believe, the way he made that perfect, sweet pass to set up the goal that beat England.<\/p>\n
There was a much-discussed and very animated conversation between Messi and Bellingham in the first half of Argentina vs. England. It was explained this way by Bellingham afterward:<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are discussing a foul, actually \u2026 It was nothing bad. I\u2019m sure everyone will do their thing and make a big deal out of it. But it was nothing big, really. I thought there was a foul earlier and he said, \u2018What about the one on me. I said: You\u2019re strong enough to take it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bellingham then added this: \u201cIt was a privilege to play against him. \u2026 A privilege to line up against one of the best.\u201d<\/p>\n
It has been a privilege to watch Messi, even more than the rest of them, in a World Cup so beautifully staged in this country, from Seattle to Miami, in Mexico City and Dallas and Kansas City, and all the other venues on their way back to Jersey. I was in Kansas City this past week, and that city was buzzing because of the World Cup games that were played in the Chiefs\u2019 stadium there.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all knew we were part of something special,\u201d a man there I talked to about it said. \u201cThey call it the beautiful game. But then this whole thing really has been beautiful from the start.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beautiful and occasionally messy. With Messi still being the one to watch, all the way to the Meadowlands, where a half-century ago Pele played for the Cosmos at old Giants Stadium.<\/p>\n
So the world and the World Cup came here this time. And despite the fact that it will always feel more like the rest of the world\u2019s sport than ours \u2014 and despite how disappointing the ending was for the U.S. Men\u2019s National Team \u2014 the way it was hosted, in all the venues, was pretty spectacular. Were there controversies? Of course. Should the president have stayed out of the red-card business? He should have, whether or not Folarin Bolagun deserved a red card in the first place or not. There were bad calls all over the place, because this is sports, and there are always going to be bad calls. And players falling to the ground as if they just took a bullet. That is a part of it all, too.<\/p>\n
Now the whole thing gets a proper ending, with the man who is still the biggest star and the biggest player in the sport as he approaches 40. Brady didn\u2019t need one more Super Bowl to establish who he was. He got one, anyway. Now Lionel Messi tries to get one more World Cup, with the whole world watching. Maybe there\u2019s a better ending than that. Tell me where. Not here.<\/p>\n
BRYSON NEEDS TO EASE UP ON THE WHINE, RED SOX GO STREAKING & NEED CARLOS AT THE OPEN \u2026<\/p>\n
Bryson DeChambeau absolutely deserved the 2-stroke penalty he got on the 5th hole on Friday.<\/p>\n
It didn\u2019t matter whether he planned to improve his backswing in the tall grass that surrounded where his errant drive landed or not.<\/p>\n
The Rules of Golf didn\u2019t care at all if what he did was accidental or not.<\/p>\n
Or about intent.<\/p>\n
Didn\u2019t much care that DeChambeau is a former major champ, and still a big draw in major championships.<\/p>\n
He clearly did what the officials from the R&A say he did, and deserved to get clipped, and shouldn\u2019t have whined up about it after that fact.<\/p>\n
And if you were watching The Open on Friday, you know that the way it was all reported out later by Rich Lerner and Brandel Chamblee and Paul McGinley was journalism \u2014 in the moment \u2014 as good as you will find on television.<\/p>\n
One more thing about Mr. DeChambeau, who seems to think that the golf world rises and sets with him<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not the media\u2019s fault that he\u2019d missed three straight cuts in majors before getting to The Open.<\/p>\n
Even when England was ahead of Argentina 1-0 the other day, you still got the feeling that they were playing from behind.<\/p>\n
You know who looked like the best player to come out of the draft, out there in Vegas?<\/p>\n
Caleb Wilson, is who.<\/p>\n
Somebody explain to me how the only rigged elections with this guy are the ones he loses?<\/p>\n
Saw this headline on Mike Florio\u2019s column the other day:<\/p>\n
\u201cGeno Smith told police his accuser tried to steal $20 million in jewelry from him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wait \u2026 wut?<\/p>\n
Twenty million?<\/p>\n
Linda Noskova pulling out of her freefall in the women\u2019s final at Wimbledon the way she did was one of the best stories that place has seen from women\u2019s tennis lately.<\/p>\n
Seth Meyers is really good at television.<\/p>\n
I still liked the old Stadium better.<\/p>\n
The Red Sox probably aren\u2019t going to have Garrett Crochet for the rest of the season.<\/p>\n
They\u2019ve barely had Roman Anthony, their best player in 2025, for any of the season.<\/p>\n
And look what they\u2019ve been doing lately, a winning streak that made it out of the All-Star Break and to Friday against the Rays.<\/p>\n
Seriously?<\/p>\n
Who saw any of this coming?<\/p>\n
You can never go wrong taking another look at the Kenzie\/Gennaro books written by Dennis Lehane.<\/p>\n
Even Jannik Sinner wants Carlos Alcaraz defending his title at the U.S. Open.<\/p>\n
Somebody needs to explain to me when Caitlin Clark stopped being the feel-good story of all times in women\u2019s basketball.<\/p>\n
Finally today:<\/p>\n
One last July birthday shout-out, to our youngest grandson, Teddy.<\/p>\n
He turned two on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Not a chance in the world we\u2019re expecting terrible twos for him.<\/p>\n
Just wonderful ones.<\/p>\n
James Patterson and Mike Lupica\u2019s new thriller, \u201cThe Country Road Murders,\u201d went on sale this past week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was Reggie Jackson who once said, \u201cI didn\u2019t come to New York to be a star. I\u2019m…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57050,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4027,3357,332,1177,23589,23420,23588,17,369],"class_list":["post-57049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-argentina","tag-fifa","tag-lionel-messi","tag-mbappe","tag-meadowlands","tag-metlife-stadium","tag-mike-lupica","tag-spain","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57049\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}