Even now, in 2026, the memory of that build-up still gives me goosebumps. After a long and chaotic month, it had come down to France and Argentina. One side was built on an incredibly efficient, productive system. The other side? It felt driven almost entirely by the genius of one man. And that man, of course, was Lionel Messi.

Really, the whole final seemed to rest on a single question: would Messi finally crown a brilliant career with the trophy he desired more than anything else? If he lost, his time as an Argentina international would end with a hollow sense of anticlimax, a permanent yearning inside an otherwise immaculate career. Could any football fan not feel the weight of that?

For France, this was their sixth final in their last 13 major tournaments. Read that again: six finals. It could even be their third World Cup triumph in 24 years, a kind of sustained success previously achieved only by Brazil. Their academy system kept producing player after player. Even with Karim Benzema, N'Golo Kante and Paul Pogba ruled out, this was a preposterously good squad.

More than that, France had a knack of winning. They were outplayed for long periods by both Morocco and England, and Poland even posted a better expected-goals figure against them. Yet they won every time. Why? Because they carried an inner belief and players who could produce extraordinary things in key moments: Hugo Lloris with his saves, Kylian Mbappe and Olivier Giroud with their goals, and the constant probing intelligence of Antoine Griezmann, who had somehow transformed himself into a midfielder at that tournament.

There was always a temptation to wonder just how good a coach Didier Deschamps really was. How could a team with this much talent so frequently find itself struggling in games? But they kept winning, and his substitutions often changed the flow. In the semi-final, bringing on Marcus Thuram for Giroud pushed Mbappe into the middle. On the left, Thuram was far more effective at tracking Achraf Hakimi's runs. Then Randal Kolo Muani scored almost immediately after coming on. Was that a tactical triumph? Hardly, but it felt emblematic of Deschamps's capacity to influence a match.

But this France was not quite the machine of 2018. The 4-3 win over Argentina and 4-2 final win over Croatia in Russia had blurred the picture. Outside those two games, that team simply didn't concede. In Qatar, however, France conceded in every match except the semi-final, and they were under pressure for long spells. The full-backs were a clear concern: Jules Kounde was a centre-back doing a job on the right, and Theo Hernandez on the left was instinctively attacking without much protection from Mbappe. The midfield, missing Kante and Pogba, was not as strong either, however impressive Aurelien Tchouameni had been.

Argentina, meanwhile, had been forced into changes as the tournament unfolded. They arrived on a 36-game unbeaten run, their strategy seemingly fixed, complicated only by the injury to Giovani Lo Celso. But the shocking defeat to Saudi Arabia forced a rethink, and that may actually have been beneficial. Julian Alvarez was only 22, but his mobility and finishing made him perhaps a more dangerous foil for Messi than Lautaro Martinez.

Yet Argentina's story was also one of youth development. It was in Qatar in 1995 that, under Jose Pekerman, they won the World Youth Cup for the first time since 1979. Pekerman and his successor Hugo Tocalli oversaw a run of five youth World Cup triumphs in 12 years. Their influence ran through that 2022 side: Scaloni was in the 1997 World Youth Cup-winning team. His assistants Walter Samuel and Pablo Aimar also emerged under Pekerman and Tocalli, as did Messi himself.

Since Tocalli was ousted, the production of Argentinian talent had slowed. Only Messi, Angel Di Maria and Papu Gomez remained from the youth-winning golden age. Paradoxically, that may have helped. With fewer options, it was easier for Scaloni to build a consistent side rather than constantly hopping between different brilliant forwards wondering which might offer the right balance.

By 2022, Argentina had become a platform for Messi. He was not like any other player, not merely in talent but in how he played. He wandered on the periphery, at 35 too old even to make the pretence of pressing. He was involved only fleetingly. And yet again and again, he delivered the decisive moments. His goal turned the vital game against Mexico when Argentina had to win to ignite their campaign. He controlled the second half against Australia after scoring the opener. His pass to set up the opener against the Netherlands was barely credible, and his run to lay on the third against Croatia, confounding Josko Gvardiol as he had once confounded Jerome Boateng, was simply stunning.

So there it was: Messi, the exceptional individual, against the all-round excellence of France. It was also a quasi-industrial French youth system against the crumbling ruins of the youth setup Pekerman and Tocalli had left behind. Could any machine, no matter how well drilled, truly silence one final masterpiece from a genius? Looking back from 2026, I am still not sure there was ever a more fitting stage.