Messi: the man who turned football into total art

I was ten years old when I sat in front of a TV in Santiago de Cuba, in the emblematic neighborhood of El Tivolí, to watch the 1986 World Cup in Mexico. The street was alive, neighbors gathered in houses, and every time Maradona touched the ball it felt like the whole block froze. That Argentina taught me that football could be more than a sport: it could be creation, pure magic. From that moment on, I never stopped following the game. And with time I discovered that Lionel Messi didn’t just inherit that magic—he took it to a level nobody had imagined.

When Zidane says that imagining Modric or Iniesta with 900 goals is absurd, I understand it from my own experience. I grew up watching midfielders who were architects of play, who gave the perfect pass but weren’t the ones to finish. Messi broke that logic. I saw him drop into midfield, receive the ball like a playmaker, and then finish the move like the deadliest striker. I had never seen that before, not even with Maradona, who was more of a spiritual leader than a scorer. Messi is both at once: the one who opens the path and the one who crosses it first.

I remember nights that marked me as a fan. The Copa América final in 2021, when Argentina beat Brazil at the Maracaná, was a collective release. I lived it from Santiago, surrounded by friends shouting as if we were in Rio. And then the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, where Messi played as if he knew it was his last chance to touch eternity. The goal against Mexico, the assist against the Netherlands, the final against France… each match was a reminder that we were watching someone who will never be repeated. And the most incredible thing is that we can still see him play, still enjoy his way of understanding football.

What impresses me most is that his goals aren’t the product of waiting for a cross in the box. They are goals born from his own creation. The goal against Getafe in 2007, starting from midfield; the free kick against Liverpool in 2019, his 600th for Barcelona; the decisive goals in Qatar. Each one has a different process, a construction he begins and ends himself. That makes him a total player, someone who refuses to accept football’s compartments. Messi is the one who sketches the play and the one who signs it at the end, like a painter who not only drafts the outline but also adds the final brushstroke.

As a Cuban, I think of our sporting icons and see a clear parallel. Messi belongs to that category of athletes who transcend their discipline, like Javier Sotomayor in high jump, Mijaín López in Greco-Roman wrestling, or Teófilo Stevenson in boxing. They are figures who don’t repeat, who define an era and become unbeatable symbols. In the world, Messi stands in the same conversation as Michael Jordan, Michael Phelps, or Usain Bolt. Not because they won a lot, but because they did things that seemed impossible.

That’s why, from my own subjectivity, I say Messi is the total player. Not just the top scorer, not just the best passer. He is both at the same time, for two decades, at the highest level. Zidane explains it from technique, I feel it from the emotion of still being able to watch him play. Messi is the one who opens spaces and the one who takes advantage of them, the one who invents paths and the one who walks them to the end. The man who turned football into complete art. And I am convinced that what we have seen in him will never happen again.