Lionel Messi was the first through, cradling the trophy he had barely let go of since he set eyes on it. And why not? It is some sight up close, the kind of thing you could hold for ever, that completes you and, in his case, completes football too. Next came Rodrigo De Paul. Then the rest, still in their kits, singing and thudding and bouncing and barging into each other, the partition walls almost caving in. Lautaro Martínez had got a fluffy mic from somewhere and was singing into it. Champagne or something fizzy was sprayed around.
“It doesn’t matter what those fucking journalists say,” they sang as they bounded past those journalists and out of there. “Because here is the national team.” Not just any national team: the world champions. “I had felt it was going to be,” Messi said. “You have to enjoy it.” Over the last month he has done so, more than ever before, which is part of what had brought them to the final although Messi admitted they had suffered too. But then, as Nicolás Tagliafico insisted: “If you don’t suffer, it doesn’t count.”
