Lionel Messi's Argentina career turned football into a sacred mystery Mora y Araujo

"What Argentina is doing in this World Cup is of a sacred order," Brazilian writer Milly Lacombe posted at the height of the tide of anti-Argentinian sentiment during this year's tournament. She was exploring the contradiction she felt around her support of Lionel Messi: "a player who is a God and a man who shakes Trump's hand".

Lacombe highlighted the importance of acknowledging the complexities around Messi and the Argentinian team. How is it possible that Messi was not speaking out against the racist incidentswe all saw around the Argentina team, she asked.

"That's why it hurts so much to see someone with Messi's power choosing to make himself small," she wrote. Much was made of Messi's silence at the time.

Then again, much has been made of his visible discomfort with words throughout his epic career. Journalist John Carlin once said that having interviewed Messi twice, he would decline a third opportunity, such was the challenge of getting the little giant to say anything of consequence.

In 2010, Juan Sebastián Verón said he had never seen Messi as nervous as when he had to address his teammates for the first time as Argentina captain. Despite this reticence, Messi has always meant something, even when he doesn't speak.

Messi and Argentina were treated as darlings when they won the World Cup in 2022. By the time the 2026 final ended in defeat to Spain, they had become villains.

"That's why it's important to understand that when Messi, in the middle of a game that was lost, looks at the sky, and then after that he turns the game around and smashed it, there is something very mysterious there. That we just feel," Lacombe said after Argentina's semi-final victory over England this summer.

"I started supporting England but by the end of the match I was weeping, surrendered to the commitment, the passion, the love that I saw the Argentina team pour on to the pitch. It's only in that moment of intense passion that we reach the sacred.

Not everyone surrendered to the sacred in the same way. The final against Spain lacked sublime power and opened the floodgates of vitriol from all corners of the globe."