Poetry is seeing Messi breaking Gvardiol’s resistance until giving a definitive and majestic goal pass. The prose is checking how time flies and the genius continues to expand a numerically incredible career. Prose does not always go hand in hand with poetry, but in this case they go hand in hand. Like mathematics, which does not lie, and which indicates that with one match to go to complete his fifth World Cup, the Argentine star is already one of the most transcendental footballers in the history of the competition. The figures bear witness everywhere. Look at the table where you look at it and more in Qatar 2022, the eyes will always stop at Leo Messi.
On Sunday, barring a setback, he will become the footballer with the most World Cup matches, with 26, surpassing German midfielder Lothar Matthäus by one, with whom he drew this Tuesday. Two more milestones were also scored against Croatia. On the one hand, he scored his 11th goal in the World Cups and became the Argentine with the most goals, one more than Gabriel Batistuta. He already has three more than Maradona and is one behind Pelé. Ahead of him is Just Fontaine, Gerd Müller, Ronaldo Nazário and Klose. On the other, he tied Maradona for eight assists in World Cup matches. Only the two of them have distributed so many goal passes in these appointments.
With his goal, his assist and his good game in general against Croatia, the man from Rosario earned his fourth trophy for best man of the match in Qatar 2022. In this sense, he tied himself. He already received four MVPs in Brazil 2014, the same as Wesley Sneijder in South Africa 2010. In both cases, both Argentina in Brazil and the Netherlands in South Africa fell in the final.
This time Messi will want to break that statistic. Without a doubt, a fifth win as the most valuable footballer would be a great sign about the result of the final for his interests.
If we close the focus and direct it only to the Qatar edition, it can be seen that Messi’s influence has grown in a team with many workers and fewer stars than in other times. The PSG striker dominates in most statistical sections within his team.
Namely, he is the team’s top scorer, with five (fights to be the top scorer of the tournament) and he is the top assistant with three. But it is also that no one has shot on goal more than him (27), no one has won more duels than him (37), no one has dribbled more than him (15), no one has received more fouls (20) and no one has shot more corners (14).
Messi feels like the leader on a mission, to give Argentina its third World Cup and get the only great title that is missing, the final icing on an imperial career. On Sunday he will play his second final after 2014 and his commitment is absolute. Some data that are not usual in him testify to this. It is true that in many matches he has walked as usual, dosing himself within the same match, but against Croatia and despite repeatedly touching his thigh he covered 8.2 kilometers. For him it is not a trivial figure and less at 35 years old. To make a comparison, in a Champions League match against Atlético in 2014, which meant the elimination of Gerardo Martino’s Barcelona, ??Leo stayed at 6.8 kilometers.
Evaluating his career in numbers alone would not reflect all his greatness, but the numbers attest to who the boss is.
