Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and the freedom to decide when and how to retire

There are many images of the triumph of Lionel Messi and Argentina in the 2022 World Cup final that we will remember for a long time. Messi who just before Montiel’s decisive penalty rolls his eyes and says vamos Diego desde el cielo, invoking Maradona, and who immediately after kneels on the ground, embraced by Paredes and then by all his companions who have just climbed with him onto the roof of the world. And then Messi who, smiling with the best player of the tournament award in his hand, lingers in a romantic tête-à-tête with the World Cup, looks at it, kisses it, before raising it together with the team wearing the alienating bisht, the Arab ceremonial cloak (another snapshot destined, for many reasons, to remain in history). And finally, perhaps the most powerful, Messi triumphantly on the shoulders of his former teammate and friend Agüero, the Golden Cup always held tightly in his hands, the nucleus of a series of concentric circles formed by his teammates, photographers, fans, all in his feet and almost all wearing the albiceleste shirt with the number 10, of which Adidas said it has run out of stock.

The image that tells the story of the adventure in Qatar by Cristiano Ronaldo instead it is a painful sequence shot that follows him from the final whistle of Portugal-Morocco 0-1 up to the tunnel for the locker rooms where the Portuguese bursts into tears, greeting his last World Cup with bowed head. Or at most the wall of journalists crowded in front of the Portuguese bench before Portugal-Switzerland, a match that Ronaldo did not start as a starter, as well as the quarter-finals lost to Morocco, despite his entry.

Messi and Ronaldo have always been distant, almost poles apart, by character, style of play, way of describing themselves on the outside, but they have also been very united in the continuous race for trophies, goals, records and, ultimately, a perfection touched by both as by no other player. In this World Cup their parallel but very close paths ended up diverging towards two opposites, Heaven and Hell. Messi wrote the most beautiful chapter of his football and human history with his feet, head and heart, Ronaldo screwed himself into a discussed, sad and honestly undeserved decline for the champion that he was.

At the end of what has already been defined by many as the best World Cup final ever, Messi has said he wants to play a couple of games for Argentina as world champion, alluding to his intention not to leave the national team immediately. With the incredible World Cup still in the eyes, one wonders what the next objectives of Pulce might be after he has finished the long and tortuous run-up to the most coveted trophy, the only one missing in his endless palmarés and also the only one capable of uniting the champion in one with the Argentine people, like Maradona 36 years ago. Winning the fifth Champions League, the first without the Barcelona shirt on? Surely. Playing for an Argentine club for the first time, perhaps in the team of his Rosario neighborhood, Newell’s Old Boys, and completing the last step to become hombre del pueblo? Possible. Or end your career in Mls, maybe stay in the United States for another three and a half years, until the 2026 World Cup, and look for a sensational encore at 39? Why not. Someone argues instead that Messi should retire now that he has achieved the highest glory, the non plus ultra sportsman, to escape from a decline similar to the one experienced this year by his historical nemesis, CR7.

This strange, controversial but unforgettable World Cup has confirmed once again that comparisons are a fun pastime, but we must not exaggerate. Messi is Messi, Ronaldo is Ronaldo, just as Maradona was Maradona. Champions like them have each earned the right to write the end of their story and we can only read it, admire it, always comment on it, never judge it. We have seen this with other greats of the past.

There are those, like Michael Jordan, who have tried to retire at the height of success, only to discover that they can be even more exceptional; those who have had a damn hard time saying enough, like Totti, and those who still don’t resign themselves to the idea that sooner or later everything will end (Buffon is still in the field at almost 45 years old). We suffered seeing Federer come close to the perfect ending, only to realize that fate had something different in store, and we enjoyed seeing Paolo Maldini come out of the unequal fight against time with incomparable elegance. All the more reason after this last month, Messi can and must do what he wants, but the same goes for Ronaldo. Both will end their own way, with no need to confront each other, and no denouement will undo their exploits.

These days we are seeing the party on the streets of Buenos Aires and all of Argentina (and beyond). From the perspective of those inside the crowd, the images are exciting, they make us experience very strong sensations but at the same time they are distorted, partial, they don’t give us an overview. If, on the other hand, a drone takes off into the sky and shows us from above the expanse of millions of people gathered around the obelisk in the Plaza de la República, we are able to better quantify all the love and pride of a people who for a few days can feel on top of the world. In the same way, even if we see their end, we are still totally immersed in the story of Messi and Ronaldo, too involved to see them from the right distance (what would we be talking about, after all, if El Dibu Martínez hadn’t saved that shot by Kolo Muani? ). In a few years, on the other hand, we will really realize what Leo Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo and all the rest have been, the controversies, how they will have retired, who was the best, will have less importance.