Lionel Messi Takes His Crown as Argentina Rejoices

Lionel Messi had to wait, and wait, and wait. He had to wait until he was 35. He had to wait until he had already lost a World Cup final. He had to wait after he had seemed to have won it for Argentina in normal time, and he had to wait after he had believed he beaten France again in extra time.

He had to wait until the end of the most extraordinary final in the tournament’s history, in which Messi offered a career-defining performance and was still, somehow, outdone by Kylian Mbappé, scorer of the first hat-trick in the biggest game there is for more than half a century. /BGNES