Don’t remember him in that stupid bloody robe. Not for now at least. Remember him walking up to the trophy the first time. Remember the way, unlike 2014 in the Maracana when he walked by head bowed, this time he stopped, caressed the round globed top of the World Cup and gave it the tenderest kiss, then a second for good measure.
The moronic Gianni Infantino and his Qatari paymasters were not the only ones to try to take this moment away from Lionel Messi. They were just the latest in the longest of lines. But they were also the last. Kylian Mbappe had tried harder than anyone in history but even his World Cup final hat-trick in this decider for the ages could not stop the little man.
So it was that Messi came bouncing across the stage clad in the bisht, a final act of Qatari sports-washing, to his team-mates to raise the thing that has been out of his reach for 17 years now. What a release.
