Time to break the staff, bury the book and call time on that rough magic. There was, by the end, an undertone of sadness about Lionel Messi, New Jersey and a World Cup final that brought Spain the glory of an entirely deserved second trophy, and which saw Argentina offer almost nothing beyond a gnarled and gristly sense of resistance.
This is an Argentina team built on faith, devotional energy and a belief in the frankly irrational magic of your lone scurrying 39-year-old genius. Well, sometimes that magic will forsake you. The deus ex machina will refuse to appear. And he is perhaps gone from this stage now for good, a Prospero giving his final address to the crowd from a clanky metal bowl outside New York.
