Lionel Messi broke the all-time World Cup scoring record this summer, first matching Miroslav Klose with a hat-trick against Algeria and then passing him against Austria. Now, at 39, he is one win away from Argentina’s fourth World Cup and his own second. (FIFA)

The player standing in the way is Lamine Yamal, who was six months old when a 20-year-old Messi helped bathe him in a plastic tub during a Barcelona and UNICEF charity shoot in 2007. It reads like something a studio would reject for being too neat. (UNICEF USA)

Except Argentina’s actual route to the final has been far too messy to feel arranged.

The Part That Actually Earns the Drama

Argentina had a comfortable group stage, winning all three matches, but every knockout round since then has involved some form of trouble. Messi has done plenty himself, including eight goals across the tournament and two assists in the semifinal, but this has hardly been a clean procession toward a final designed around him. (Reuters)

Cabo Verde pushed Argentina through the full 120 minutes in the round of 32. Messi scored first, Lautaro Martínez restored the lead in extra time, Cabo Verde equalised again, and only an own goal from a Messi corner finally settled it at 3-2. (FIFA)

Egypt were 2-0 ahead after 78 minutes in the round of 16. Argentina somehow scored three times in the next 14 minutes and won 3-2, with Messi beginning a comeback that looked dead before it had properly started. (FIFA)

Switzerland then took the quarterfinal into extra time despite playing with ten men from the 72nd minute. Argentina eventually won 3-1 through late goals from Julián Álvarez and Lautaro, but they needed 112 minutes to break a team they had outnumbered for most of the second half. (Reuters)

England were next, and once again Argentina fell behind. Anthony Gordon scored in the 55th minute, England dropped deeper, and Messi set up both late goals as Enzo Fernández equalised in the 85th minute before Lautaro won it in stoppage time. (Reuters)

Nobody schedules that on purpose. A team being protected for a storybook ending does not spend four knockout rounds falling behind, going to extra time and coming within minutes of elimination. Argentina have simply become very good at creating problems for themselves and then refusing to accept the obvious result.

Messi Is Not Being Carried to the Ending

The baby-photo story is lovely, but it would be empty without Messi’s actual football behind it.

He scored every Argentine goal in the opening wins over Algeria and Austria, breaking the World Cup record in the process. Against England he did not score, but when Argentina needed two goals late in the semifinal, he created both of them. (FIFA)

At 39, this is the most prolific World Cup of his career. That sounds slightly ridiculous because he has already played six of them, won one, reached another final in 2014 and spent most of the past twenty years making normal football statistics look badly designed.

He is no longer running every match for ninety minutes, and Argentina have plenty of players doing the physical work around him. The strange part is how little that seems to matter once he receives the ball in an important position. He can spend several minutes appearing almost detached from the match, then find the exact pass that changes it.

That is not nostalgia carrying an old player through one final tournament. That is real output from a guy performing at an age when most players have already moved into a broadcast studio and started criticising younger men for not wanting it enough.

Spain Are Not Here to Complete His Story

Spain are not a banana skin or a polite final opponent selected to watch Messi lift the trophy.

They drew 0-0 with Cabo Verde in their opening match, then won six straight on the way to the final. They have conceded only one goal in seven games, beat France 2-0 in the semifinal and arrive on a 37-match unbeaten run. (FIFA)

Yamal is 19, but there is no need to cast him as the young outsider who should feel lucky to be there. He already won Euro 2024 with Spain, has been central to Barcelona and now starts a World Cup final against the man from that ridiculous baby photo. Spain also have the tournament’s best defensive record, which matters rather more on Sunday than the calendar shoot. (Financial Times)

The teams enter from opposite directions. Argentina have scored more than anyone but have spent the knockout rounds surviving their own chaos. Spain have allowed almost nothing, controlled most of their matches and rarely looked as desperate as Argentina have looked several times in the past two weeks.

That makes the final better. Messi does not need another ceremonial goodbye against an opponent happy to be part of the occasion. He gets the strongest defensive team in the tournament, led by a teenager who has spent half his life being introduced as the next version of him.

Sunday Is the Real Test

If Argentina win, they become the first country since Brazil in 1962 to retain the World Cup, Messi takes his second title and that old photograph becomes unavoidable for the rest of football history. If Spain win, they claim their second World Cup and Yamal’s career somehow becomes even more ridiculous before his twentieth birthday. (AP News)

Either result works because both teams earned their place. Argentina kept finding ways out of matches that appeared finished, while Spain kept removing most of the drama before it could begin.

The fairytale framing is fun, and no sports editor on Earth is going to resist that photograph. But the match does not need it. Messi has produced one of the strangest great World Cups we have seen, Spain have been the most controlled team in the tournament, and Yamal is good enough to ruin everybody’s preferred ending without apologising for it.

Kickoff is 3 p.m. ET on Sunday, July 19, at New York New Jersey Stadium. (FIFA)

• Reuters
• AP News
• Reuters