It comes down to this: por la última de Leo. The phrase has followed the Albiceleste for weeks, echoing through the supporters who have crossed the Atlantic and the players who have carried it from the stands into the dressing room, shouting it after every victory. The Selección have turned it into the soundtrack of this summer. Because the dream is not only to become bicampeón – to win the World Cup twice in succession, something achieved only by Italy and Brazil – but to take Lionel Messi and Argentina’s story somewhere it has never been before. A twenty-year journey that started with a World Cup goal on his debut, before he was even 19, and moved through years of expectations that never quite became reality. Disappointments that grew into ghosts, curses, finals lost and lost again. A story that seemed destined to remain unfinished, with Messi himself, at one point, ready to close the door on the national team. Then came Lionel Scaloni. And with him came the Scaloneta: a side unlike any other, built from the ruins of the defeats “we cried over for so many years” – another refrain from the supporters in Qatar – and rebuilt through the Copa América triumph at the Maracanã against Brazil. For an Argentine, there are few moments that compare. From there, football finally returned to Messi what it had withheld for so long: the World Cup, another Copa América, even the Finalissima between CONMEBOL and UEFA. “Football has already given me so much,” Leo said in these weeks. “Whatever comes next will be something extra to enjoy fully. To think we could win again would be incredible.”
And yet Argentina are here again, in a tournament that has tested them almost every step of the way – Cape Verde, Egypt, Switzerland – before they found a way through. Now comes the penultimate act, against England. The Scaloneta has reached this stage with an identity that belongs entirely to them: a group built around its leader, with Messi answering through goals and performances that continue to add to his extraordinary record. The BBC has focused on the same point, that the best version of Messi has come from the environment around him. A team that loves him, protects him and gives him the freedom to be himself. The friendship with Rodrigo De Paul, they suggested, has the feeling of “a gang leader ready to do anything to protect his star”. Meanwhile Messi prepared for these weeks with the care of someone who understands his body better than anyone, now approaching forty. Still enough to change the course of a game. There is a temptation to tell this Argentina story through Messi alone: the goals, the moments, the genius. There is truth in that. But without the players around him, this version of Leo would never have existed. “The best moments with the national team, by far, are the group celebrations,” Scaloni said. “I coach for these emotions, not because I want to play a 4-3-3. I like drinking mate with friends and players, having a barbecue together, playing cards like we always have.” This is the Selección. Its strength is not found only in statistics, numbers or tactical explanations. It comes from something deeper: a country, its memories, and the players who carry them onto the pitch. Por Malvinas, por El Diego, por la última de Leo.