Messi emulates Maradona in fairytale ending to a story like no other

Süddeutsche Zeitung likened it to a crowd gathering to see Michelangelo apply the final brushstroke of a glorious career

DEITY: Argentina's captain and spiritual leader Lionel Messi celebrates at the Lusail Stadium

Lionel Messi completed football on Sunday, the greatest story ever told. The 26th and last match of his World Cup journey was the final to end all finals, a moment that’s never been equalled before and probably never will be again. So wild that none of it made any sense until he was standing there waving to the stands smiling, and then it all did. It was hard to comprehend what he and they had gone through – an entire career, the most accomplished of all, packed into one absurd evening – but there was closure at last.

It was done. The world had the ending it wanted – Didier Deschamps had said that even some of the French were on Messi’s side – just don’t ask how. Eventually, from somewhere up there, Messi’s mum found her way down to embrace the boy who left home, Argentina, at 13 and the man who had now taken them – or had they taken him? – to the title the most devotional of football fans desperately wanted. Together, they cried. Everyone did. Ángel Di María had spent the evening torn and in tears.