Was it wrong to feel sad? One more game and it’s over. But wait: there’s more. English League Cup games next week. Premier League returns on Boxing Day. The football circus rolls on with scant concern for the well-being of the elite athletes that play the game almost year-round. They shoot horses, don’t they? Their labor: our enjoyment. The World Cup final the pinnacle of our joy.

I watched it at another Irish pub. The bartender knew nothing about football. Not a thing. He showed up expecting his regular Sunday morning shift. Nice and easy. A few regulars dropping in for a hair-of-the-dog beer and maybe one or two breakfast platters. I arrived early to get a good seat. I didn’t have the heart to tell him what was about to happen. Sure enough, by game time the place was crammed shoulder to shoulder and the overwhelmed bar tender had to phone for reinforcements! It would only get worse for him, as we were about to watch, arguably, the greatest football match of all time.

No blow-by-blow account can do this game justice. Argentina raced to a 2:0 lead in the first half. Their second goal, one of my favorites ever. 6 touches front to back for DiMaria to poke it home.  Then Mbappe, invisible for most of the game, roused to action with two goals to equalize in the 82^nd minute. I watched with some very knowledgeable fans. One, a Nigerian, pointed out that Argentina’s substitution of Di Maria, a left winger, for Marcos Acuna Gonzales, a holding midfielder, in the 64^th minute changed the shape of the game allowing Mbappe the space he’d been deprived in the first half. A coaching error which, in our opinion, nearly cost Argentina the match. I’ve never welcomed extra time as much. Another 30 minutes of this! The skill, the energy, the commitment was breathtaking

It ended 3:3 and penalties would decide the winner. Argentina’s goalkeeper, Emilio Martinez, was the deciding factor. Master of the dark arts, his psychological tactics and gamesmanship unnerved the French. There is more than one way to win a football match and his antics brought another aspect to this incredible game. Not pretty but effective. Martinez saved two before Gonzalo Montiel slotted home the deciding penalty. Argentina had won the Cup.        

I have no hesitation in saying, this was the best World Cup final ever and, probably, the best game of football ever.

Messi’s World Cup? The result FIFA wanted to add the gilded touch to a controversial tournament? Maybe. But then we’re overthinking it. The Messi, Ronaldo debate is resolved. There is no longer any doubt. Messi is the best of his generation, the accolades earned and deserved and this his crowning accomplishment. We’re blessed to have him!

Is he the GOAT? That, I’m not so sure of. It’s impossible to make comparisons across generations, but I will. For me there is only one GOAT. Pele, who sadly passed away just ten days after this incredible match. I hope he watched and enjoyed it as much as the rest of us.

Two days later, a jubilant crowd of five million people packed the avenues and plazas of Buenos Aeries to welcome the team home with the Cup. The crowd was so dense that the bus carrying the players couldn’t complete its route and they had to be rescued by helicopter. After three World Cups, in the end, to me, it’s always about the people. Here, five million of them, happy and joyous. Simply celebrating a group of young men that were quite good at kicking a silly ball around a piece of grass.

Is football really a matter of life and death?

No: it’s far more important than that