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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Sport
Anita Asante

Messi is thriving off the responsibility of creating a fairytale World Cup swansong

Lionel Messi’s Argentina will take on the Netherlands in a World Cup quarter-final on Friday.
Lionel Messi’s Argentina will take on the Netherlands in a World Cup quarter-final on Friday. Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian

How do you stop someone who seems to have capabilities that are beyond human? That is the question that no player or team that has gone up against Lionel Messi at this World Cup has been able to answer. Next in line to try to stop the unstoppable and end Messi’s hunt for the missing piece of his trophy puzzle will be the Netherlands on Friday evening.

At 35 years old this is potentially the Argentinian’s final World Cup and he is thriving. Thriving off the responsibility and expectation, almost as if the fact that this could be his last chance has lifted the pressure that comes with all that.

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