Lionel Messi has ended his long, glorious international career. In a statement on Monday, he said he was ‘leaving in peace’ after failing to win a second FIFA World Cup on the trot, saying that his father Jorge’s passing after a long battle with illness had ‘convinced’ him to make the call.
India will perhaps always remember Messi from the awkward and utterly controversial GOAT tour of last year. The politicised interactions, the expensive tickets just to catch a glimpse of him (sometimes not even that!), and the understandable questions about when India would invest as much in Indian football as on Messi, overshadowed what would have been a dream-fulfilling moment for many.
For India always watched Messi from a distance. Even today, there would
be more social media posts about how Messi and Sachin Tendulkar shared the same kit number than just about the Argentinian legend himself. Every sports fan knew him, but his image struggled to reach the cult status heights that it deserved, despite the occasional cut-out statue in Kerala or a crazy fan here and there.
In Argentina, he was for the masses, the poorest of the poor, carrying their hopes and dreams. In India, he was still a distant dream — apart from one night in 2011, long before he became the GOAT.
With a 24-year-old Messi captaining his country, Argentina arrived in Kolkata for a FIFA international friendly against Venezuela at the Salt Lake Stadium. Over 120,000 people saw him provide the assist for Nicolás Otamendi’s winning goal as Argentina took home a 1-0 victory.
Tickets for that day began as low as Rs. 700, a still modest Rs. 1300 on current inflation.
“The god of football is in town, it’s almost surreal,” Malay Banerjee, a software professional, told AFP that day. “My father, myself and my son are all Argentina fans. For us it is a dream come true to have the team play in our own backyard.”
“I never thought I would get a chance to see [Messi] play at one of our stadiums,” office worker Rohini Biswas said, after two sleepless nights.
India were placed 155 in the FIFA rankings then, and are only 138 now. Messi has won everything he could, and India will probably never see him play again live on its land. But it’ll always have that one night.
