{"text":[[{"start":6.9,"text":"When Lionel Messi was 13, his father signed a contract with FC Barcelona on a napkin. It covered the family’s move from Rosario in Argentina to Spain. The club also funded hormone treatment so that the prodigy, 1.4 metres tall, could reach a normal height. The Messis wept in the taxi to the airport. They were joining the diaspora fleeing Argentina’s long economic decline."}],[{"start":33.8,"text":"Messi, now 39, has never lived in his country since. He plays for Inter Miami after 20 years in Barcelona. Yet this émigré has become the face of Argentina even beyond the football field. At an age when almost all his contemporaries have retired, he has scored eight goals at this World Cup so far, and leads Argentina’s campaign to retain its title. On Sunday in New Jersey, he will play his third World Cup final, this time against the country where he spent half his life, Spain."}],[{"start":63.3,"text":"Like many émigrés, Messi identifies with the place he left. Spain wooed him to play for their youth teams — which would have changed the complexion of Sunday’s final — but he only wanted to play for Argentina. He always retained its accent."}],[{"start":79.3,"text":"The kid with the flowerpot haircut was sent off within 45 seconds on his national debut in 2005, and started at the bottom of the hierarchy. After a friendly against Croatia in Basel, Argentina’s federation returned him to Barcelona on EasyJet. But his brilliance was unmissable. He was what Argentines call a “pibe”, a boy, a natural dribbler, whose preternatural anticipation and short steps allowed him to change direction faster than opponents."}],[{"start":108.35,"text":"The obvious comparison was with Diego Maradona, a pibe who won Argentina the 1986 World Cup almost single-handed. But Maradona had a wild poetry off the field. He sang tangos and channelled the nation’s emotions. After beating England with a handled goal and a brilliant solo, he said it was revenge for the Falklands war, where the British had killed Argentine conscripts “like little birds”. "}],[{"start":132.54999999999998,"text":"Messi, by contrast, is a taciturn introvert. Whereas Maradona grew up in a slum outside Buenos Aires, Messi was raised almost outside society, the product of a family clan and Barcelona’s football academy. But it was an Argentine clan, consisting of his parents, siblings and his wife Antonela, whom he knew from childhood in Rosario. "}],[{"start":156.14999999999998,"text":"He and Antonela raised their three sons in quiet Castelldefels outside Barcelona. Messi would shine in the Camp Nou stadium, then commute home along the empty midnight highway. Three days later, he’d do it again. "}],[{"start":169.54999999999998,"text":"But for years, he couldn’t do it for Argentina, partly because Barcelona socialised him into fast collective Spanish passing football. The great pibe became a great collective footballer, too. By contrast, Argentina’s game was chaotic. Their former manager César Luis Menotti observed: “At Barcelona he plays; with the national team he runs.” "}],[{"start":192.1,"text":"It frustrated Argentines that Messi only excelled for Barça. Some called him a “pecho frío” — a “cold chest” who didn’t feel the warmth of the blue-and-white shirt. The charge enraged him: “Nothing gets me more upset than you telling me I’m not Argentine.”"}],[{"start":207.75,"text":"Yet Maradona’s legacy seemed to weigh on him. Messi carried a mediocre Argentina to the 2014 World Cup final, but they lost 1-0 to Germany after he blasted a last-chance free kick into the stands. After losing the final of the Copa América to Chile in 2016, he retired from the national team, before almost instantly unretiring. "}],[{"start":232,"text":"In 2018, his former teammate Lionel Scaloni became Argentina’s manager. Scaloni understood how Messi wanted Argentina to play: slower than Europeans, with short passing, an intricate game that Argentines call “la nuestra” or “ours”. Aged 34, Messi finally won a trophy with Argentina, the Copa América of 2021. A year later, he lifted the World Cup. At 35, his career seemed complete. "}],[{"start":259.55,"text":"But here he is again, playing without pressure, having already delivered. His gift, probably to his own surprise, hasn’t expired. His nutritionist Ismael Galancho notes that his highest sprinting speed, a very respectable 30.9km an hour, is faster than in 2022. Galancho said: “What exactly have we done to reverse his biology? I can’t say but I’m super-contented with the result.” "}],[{"start":285.75,"text":"On the field, Messi sees everything. All his career, he ignored the ball for the first five minutes and instead walked around, memorising the position of each opponent and the spaces between them. But now he spends almost the entire game walking and scanning. When he breaks into a run, his teammates know he has seen an opening. They play to serve him. When he moved to the right wing against Egypt, seeing space there, the team remade itself around him. Argentina, two goals down after 78 minutes, won 3-2. Scaloni said afterwards: “We were not the ones who told him to go out to the right.” Messi moved right again against England and again Argentina came back to win."}],[{"start":327.4,"text":"Referees protect him more than other players, but that’s probably because they are awed by his stardom not because (as a widespread theory goes) there’s a Fifa conspiracy to win him the World Cup."}],[{"start":339.29999999999995,"text":"Every stadium at Argentina’s games here is full of Argentines, many fellow émigrés. Most wear shirts with his name on the back. They come from the country of Messi. Crucially for his legend, he has learnt to express emotion, crying on the field, perhaps because his father is ill. In football he has created an alternative global hierarchy in which the US is an also-ran, China is absent, European powers are humiliated, and Argentina is top of the world."}],[{"start":375.45,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1784334306_4573.mp3"}