Messi leads Argentina to World Cup title
This World Cup was the best! The guardians of this beautiful game couldn’t have scripted it any better.
Proof enough came from fans marveling at the unprecedented hospitality. But its success had everything to do with players’ dazzling feats. Fans experienced the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat several times each match.
Lionel Messi’s wait for World Cup glory is finally over after Argentina beat France in a dramatic penalty shootout on Sunday. It was a final for the ages, with momentum swinging both ways throughout a pulsating 120 minutes before Gonzalo Montiel scored the winning penalty after the game had finished 3-3 after extra time.
Messi, playing in his fifth and final World Cup, scored twice but France’s Kylian Mbappé netted a stunning hattrick – the first in a final since 1966 – as both superstars brilliantly slugged it out on the biggest stage of all.
(CNN, December 18, 2022)
Messi and Argentina deserve all the praise. But the best thing about this World Cup was watching Morocco. It became the first nation in Africa to advance to the semifinals.
Qatar proved critics wrong
Of course, Eurocentric criticism dominated media previews. But even those critics are now hailing this World Cup begrudgingly. Nonetheless, they can’t bear to eat a whole humble pie. So they are carving out petty reasons to criticize. For example, they are manufacturing outrage over the Emir adorning Messi with the bisht.
Mind you, draping Messi in the bisht is the grandest gesture of respect Qatar could show him. And Messi was a good sport to receive it so graciously and wear it so proudly.
Moreover, this gesture says far more about FIFA’s venality than Qatar’s immorality. Critics are basing their outrage on Qatar’s appalling record on human rights. But that suggests FIFA should never have granted Qatar the right to host this World Cup. That is if local customs offend European sensibilities so much.
To paraphrase a famous proverb: When in Qatar, at least respect what Qataris do. That’s all any Qatari needs to say to answer these criticisms.
Hail, Messi! Congratulations Argentina!