World Cup: Messi blows chance for greatness
Messi’s features are usually a blank mask, but his frustration showed, mouth sagging open as he wiped the sweat from his brow. Even he, preternaturally self-confident as he must be, must have wondered if that was the chance, if that miss would haunt him through sleepless nights for the rest of his life. It took a long time for the fatal blow to fall, but as Mario Götze took down Andre Schurrle’s cross and volleyed in, the confirmation came.
Gonzalo Higuain also missed a glorious chance in the first half but the personal stakes were rather different. This had, after all, been designated as Messi’s tournament. Even when he signed his first professional contract with Barcelona in 2003, his father sought to agree a deal that expired in summer 2013; if his son wasn’t playing regularly a year before the World Cup when he would, in theory, be at his peak, he wanted him to have the opportunity to move on. In the end, Barcelona persuaded him to sign till 2014 – and there have subsequently been countless extensions – but the fact the thought was there, even then, even 11 years ago when he was just 16, is telling.
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