Tears, tears, tears.
Lionel Messi is in tears, falling to his knees in the grass. He holds his arms out wide, his face a portrait of pure sublimity. He has realised something nobody else knows, like he has seen the face of God, like he has touched paradise.
He disappears shortly after, buried beneath a rush of blue and white. Then something unexpected washes around the stadium. It is not the roar of 40,000 Argentinian fans driven to rapture by the final whistle of this indescribable game. Instead, it's something quite the opposite: a kind of divine silence, a long and peaceful breath at having watched something long awaited finally arrive.
