EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. (AP) — Lionel Messi rarely loses. Spain never loses.
That's been how things have worked in recent years, anyway. Soccer's best player and soccer's dominant team are set to collide Sunday in a World Cup final worthy of the sport's grandest stage. Messi and Argentina will face a Spain squad that is unbeaten in 37 consecutive matches going back to early 2024.
For Spain, it's a chance at a second World Cup title to go along with the
one from 2010 and to cement itself as the unquestioned dominant force in the game right now. For Argentina, it's a chance to become the first back-to-back men's World Cup champion since Pele and Brazil did it in 1958 and 1962. And for Messi, it's a chance to write the perfect ending to what he has indicated will be his final run with his national team.
“On Sunday, we will watch a great show," said Spain coach Luis de la Fuente, who has guided his side to a 28-0-9 record during this unbeaten run. “Two great national teams — two superteams, in my opinion — very similar in some aspects in terms of attitude, footballers’ talent. I think that it’s going to be an amazing final.”
In simplest terms, the matchup looks like best player vs. best team.
In actuality, it's so much more than that.
There is history there, given that Messi was born in Argentina but spent part of his youth and most of his club career in Spain, and would have been eligible — if he wanted — to play for that national team instead. Spain tried to convince Messi many times. He never wavered.
Sunday will be the first time he plays against Spain since a friendly in 2010, when Argentina routed the then-reigning World Cup champions. He obviously understands the enormous stakes around this match and insists the approach will be simple regardless — spending a Sunday afternoon with some friends, kicking the ball around, albeit with 80,000 people watching in the stadium and probably somewhere around 2 billion watching worldwide.
And there's also the incredible storyline of how Messi and Spain star Lamine Yamal, who were photographed together nearly two decades ago when Yamal was a baby, will be sharing the pitch in a World Cup final.
“We grew up playing soccer with passion, eager to play,” Messi said in his native Spanish. “We played everywhere. We played on the street. We played at school. We played with teams. We didn’t think about the pressure. It was just natural play.”
But there will be pressure Sunday, and tons of it. Win or lose, Argentina knows this is likely the end of the Messi era in blue and white.
“The best footballer that the world has seen,” Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni said.
It wasn't always that way. Go back a decade, and this run — Copa América champions in 2021, World Cup champions in 2022, Copa América champions again in 2024 — almost never happened for Argentina.
Messi retired from the national team in 2016, after he and Argentina lost that year's Copa América final to Chile in penalty kicks — one of which he missed. Fortunately for all parties involved, the retirement only lasted a few weeks. But he had grown tired of always coming up short in big matches for his national team, and was ready to step away from that squad at 29.
“I'm done,” Messi said that night — at MetLife Stadium, which just happens to be the site of this World Cup final.
He wasn't done, of course. He continued starring for Barcelona, then Paris Saint Germain, then Inter Miami. He's the two-time defending Most Valuable Player in Major League Soccer, the star of that league's reigning champions, someone who can still create goals in the biggest moments with virtual ease.
“He is pure history,” Scaloni said. “History. A legend.”
Spain is chasing history as well. La Roja — “the red” — are the favorites for Sunday, deservedly so after giving up just one goal in the team's first seven matches of this tournament. Spain has not spent a single second trailing at this World Cup; Argentina has trailed for more than 100 minutes, including stoppage time.
Defensive performances like this simply do not happen, even in the World Cup. There are three teams — Spain in 2010, Italy in 2006 and France in 1998 — who won the title and gave up a total of two goals in the tournament. This Spain team is in line to do even better than that.
“Argentina is far more than Messi,” Spain captain Rodri said. "They’ve proven that they’re a very complete team with top players. ... We are the best two teams playing in a collective manner as a group. Of course, we need to be mindful of Leo, but many other players.”
So, it's down to two. The 104th and final match of the biggest World Cup in history — 48 teams, spread out over the U.S., Canada and Mexico — comes down to the defending champions against the heirs apparent, the biggest star in the game against those who have idolized him and now can end his reign.
It was not a World Cup without challenges. The tournament had geopolitical discomfort and controversy, like an Iranian team facing what it said were onerous travel restrictions as its country was at war with the U.S., criticism of FIFA for lifting U.S. star Folarin Balogun’s red-card suspension following urging from President Donald Trump — who will be at Sunday's match to present the trophy — and the British government wanting an investigation of Argentina’s team after players posed with a banner claiming sovereignty over the Falkland Islands after their semifinal win against England.
But in the end, the World Cup will close as it always does, with one side celebrating and one side devastated.
“They’ve got their strengths. So do we," Argentina goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez said. “I wish it will be a final that goes down in history.”
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AP Sports Writer Stephen Whyno in New York contributed.
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See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here
