Is Lionel Messi Finally The Greatest Of All Time?

Lionel Messi has finally won the World Cup. Is the GOAT debate over? (Getty Images)

As Gonzalo Montiel slotted home past Hugo Lloris, shades of blue and white erupted across the Lusail Stadium. Messi sank into the ground in joy, engulfed by his teammates.

He had finally done it.

After a long, glittering career, he had finally filled that one gaping hole in his star-studded CV, one that had always left him lagging behind in the debate with Pele and Diego Maradona to be the greatest footballer of all time. And now, this singular global triumph would surely, almost inarguably, elevate him above these two greats.

In the hours after the Argentinian win, pictures and videos of the Argentinian captain lifting the coveted trophy spread all across social media, accompanied with captions like "Messi has completed football." It was almost like a fairy tale that had reached its happy ending.

Having emerged over the years as a product of armchair analysts' whataboutism, the lack of a World Cup trophy was the single and most convenient evidence that a record seven-time recipient of the Ballon d'Or could not possibly have been the greatest of all time. 

But with this victory in Qatar, the narrative was set. There was nothing else that could possibly be used against Messi.

But what if things had been different? What if, in the dying embers of extra time, Randall Kolo Muani had thumped his shot into the back of the net, and left Emiliano Martinez sprawled on the ground? What if France's penalty takers had been more assertive, more confident against the cocky Martinez?

What It Takes To Be The Greatest Of All Time

Argentina were as close to losing as they were to winning against an Mbappe-powered France. But who's to say that Messi is any less of a footballing great, if Kolo Muani's shot had gone in?

This is a man who has made us rethink the entire definition of a footballing legend, redefining boundaries and limits we had not even though were possible. He is the first man to win two Golden Balls across two World Cups (2014 and 2022), and has more Player Of The Match Awards in this tournament than some teams have goals. 

And that is not even considering his achievements at club level. With a ridiculous 695 goals scored for Barcelona and PSG combined, along with numerous Player Of The Year and Top Scorer awards, his individual achievements are undeniable.

Critics of Messi and general skepticism surrounding the GOAT debate will always be: so what trophies has he won? After all, football is a team sport, and winning a major trophy with your team severely inflates your chances at individual acclaim.

It's an argument mostly launched at the likes of Harry Kane — players who have been individually brilliant but have never won a major trophy with their team.

And it is therefore is no surprise that numerous Ballon d'Or winners come from the winners of the UEFA Champions League, or at least their domestic title. The bulk of Ronaldo's Ballon d'Or wins coincided with his UCL exploits with Real Madrid. Luka Modric won the Ballon d'Or when he led his Croatian underdogs to the 2018 World Cup final, while also winning the UCL with Real Madrid. When Karim Benzema did the same this year, the narrative was that he, too, had the award under wraps. And now Messi is a shoo-in for next year's award given his World Cup triumphs.

But the trophy standards are much, much higher, for a GOAT. If you have to triumph in the UCL for the annual Ballon d'Or, you must do it multiple times to be considered the GOAT.

And that's where the World Cup comes in. A global affair that happens only every four years, it is the epitome of a "big game" tournament. To lead your country to a World Cup or any international triumph is seen as this almost magical and surreal achievement that transcends even the greatest of club achievements. It is about as "global" as you can get.

This is ever more so for an man like Messi — a man who has lived pretty much his entire career in the shadow of the late great Diego Maradona. Two left-footed Argentine number 10s with a penchant for silky, magical dribbles were always going to be compared to each other. The comparisons are easy, but the debate is difficult.

Up till this year, Maradona always had the upper hand over Messi, with that one World Cup win in 1986 giving him the edge. In fact, Maradona is pretty much defined by that "Hand Of God" tournament. Maradona is Argentina's footballing darling, and Messi can only emulate him. Fans and pundits would always ask the question: "Has Messi ever triumphed with Argentina on the world stage?"

There is an interesting algorithm created by a University of Oxford mathematician to decide who is truly the greatest of all time. Dr Tom Crawford uses seven criteria, namely — club honours, international honours, club goals, international goals, Ballon d'Or votes, individual records, and a final "Z-Factor" based on how influential they were to their teams.

You can already see the bias towards attackers — goals scored are counted, but not assists or clean sheets. But after all, goals are the easiest to quantify and all the GOAT contenders are attackers anyway. Putting that aside, both club and international achievements have their time to shine. But while Dr Crawford weighs each club honour individually using UEFA's coefficients, World Cups and continental triumphs get a flat 150 and 100 points each - a testament to the "global" nature of their recognition.

But even with seemingly logical considerations, the results are somewhat surprising.

CR7 tops the list, with Messi and Pele rounding out the top three. Ferenc Puskas is fourth (likely due to his absurd goalscoring record), while Maradona finishes down in ninth. This just goes to show that you cannot really quantify greatness.

The Magic Of The World Cup

While this algorithm is of course subjective, the World Cup itself is an objective achievement. It transcends even sport itself — saying you won a World Cup rather than the UEFA Champions League in Europe is so much easier to understand by a non-sports fan, and so much more prestigious.

The World Cup needs no explanation. It is like the allure of the Olympics over the IAAF Athletics World Championships or the FINA Swimming World Championships — the allure of a heralded event that only occurs every four years, and brings together fans and families, and transcends national and geographic boundaries.

This is why Puskas, despite his insanely high goalscoring record ranking him fourth in Dr Crawford's algorithm, is never really held in the same regard as Pele or Maradona. It is why Maradona, even without half as many domestic trophies as Messi, catapults himself way above his ninth place in Dr Crawford's rankings. This is the sheer power of a World Cup win.

And this is why Messi needed to win the World Cup to truly cement his place as the football GOAT. To satisfy armchair analysts and Pele and Maradona fanatics. To placate a nation obsessed with left-footed dribbly boys wearing the number 10. To elevate himself to the level of previous greats. It is an easy metric to quantify: A has won a World Cup, but B has not. Therefore A is greater than B.

But another perspective is that, in a World Cup-laden debate, Messi has still been up there despite his lack of a World Cup trophy.

Prior to 2022, Messi and Ronaldo, the 21st century's GOAT contenders, had shared a grand total of zero World Cup trophies between them. Other greats like Zinedine Zidane, Ronaldo Fenomeno, Xavi and Iniesta all have triumphed on the world stage, but are generally considered a step below Messi and Ronaldo. The fact that Messi and Ronaldo are considered "great" even without the aura of a World Cup trophy is significant, to say the least.

And this brings us to the man that Messi was up against in the final. You sense Mbappe already has a better career trajectory — he's won it all domestically, lifted the World Cup at nineteen years of age, and is soon becoming both PSG's and France's record goalscorer. The one accolade he is yet to win, the Ballon d'Or, is almost inevitably his once Messi and Ronaldo retire.

Mbappe has done more in 5 years than some players have in 15. He could even retire way before 30 and "complete" football much earlier than Messi. Then there would be no "gaping" hole in his CV, no "what about X" question marks the same way the World Cup hung over Messi's head in the twilight years of his career. But would he then be still greater than Messi? 

The Story Of Lionel Messi

The thing about sport is that we love a fairy tale. We love the idea of an amazing underdog story, of how David rose from the ashes to defeat Goliath. We loved it when Japan beat Germany via the tiniest of margins, when Morocco became the first African nation to reach the semi-finals of a World Cup, when tiny Croatia masterminded two consecutive World Cup medal hauls.

And in a sense, Messi finally winning the trophy that had eluded him all his career was the fairy tale we had been waiting for.

The story of Messi was the story of a tragic great, the story of a man who had done just about everything and yet lacked that little bit more. It was the story of a man who ticked every single box except one.

And that is what makes Messi's triumph so much more meaningful.

If Kolo Muani had scored, Mbappe would have had his second World Cup at the age of 23, with a nation brimming with talent. He would go back to PSG and win title after title, scoring goal after goal. He would likely win numerous Ballon d'Ors over the next few seasons.

The narrative would be that Messi was finished, that this World Cup was a passing of the torch, that the coveted trophy would always elude him. We would all be like the Saudis, asking: Where is Messi?

Mbappe winning two World Cups at the age of 23 is no easy feat. It is an admirable story, but also a boring one. Messi winning it for the first time after 18 years of trophy-laden football is a much more meaningful story, and a much more amazing one to tell. The juxtaposition with Cristiano Ronaldo was poetic — two fading stars on their final journey, one able to summon a last burst of strength to carry his team to the trophy, and the other almost entirely dropping out of his team.

Messi's win is the story we all want to tell. We want to tell of a man who spent his entire international career vying for the World Cup and finally won it, rather than a man who won it all on in his first international tournament as a teenager. We want to tell of a man who avoids off-field antics and lets his football do the talking, and contrast that with the fortunes of his longtime rival who just got released from his club for doing the former.

The greatness of Messi is not just what he has achieved, but the way in which he has done so, and the narratives you can write about him.

He is the quiet magician to Cristiano's boisterous machine. He is the experienced old head to Mbappe's exuberant youth. He doesn't play "boring football" — he dribbles beautifully and makes sumptuous passes that find their place in YouTube compilations. He can score all types of goals, not just penalties or tap-ins. He is also not a selfish goalscorer, rather a team player and assister.

And most important of all, he's following in the footsteps of Maradona. It was an undeniable part of his destiny to be Maradona's successor — to bring the Cup back to his nation for the first time since 1986. It was written in the stars, and it has come true.

And so now when you think of who the greatest footballer of all time is, it is hard to think of anyone other than Lionel Messi. Not because his achievements are objectively the greatest (although most of them are), but because the story of his career is the greatest.

On the field, he's got everything you could ask for in a GOAT — individual honours, club honours, international honours, goals and assists, mesmerising style of play.

Off the field, he is always a palatable choice for the neutrals — humble, avoids controversy, doesn't have outrageous haircuts or a flashy social media life, loyal to his club (until they were no longer loyal to him), lets his feet do the talking.

The only criticism ever hurled at him was the lack of a World Cup trophy, which he now has emphatically delivered. And so there is nothing else left for Messi to prove, nothing else that even the strongest whataboutism can muster.

But it is difficult to say the GOAT debate is over, because it never really is. We cannot really compare players across generations — playing conditions and medical improvements, among other variables, make for an unequal playing field.

But if we were to talk about the greatest footballing story that any career has ever given us, it is hard to argue against the shining light of Lionel Messi.