In honor of it being the 39th birthday of the greatest of all time, I have been looking back at the best matches of the career of Messi, 2011 in Wembley, 2009 in Rome before that, 16/17 El Clasico in the Bernabeu where he got battered and bruised against Marcelo and Ramos and still slotted it in to the bottom left corner but this match is the greatest match at the greatest stage for the greatest player. Argentina this campaign was coming off a hot streak of 34 unbeaten games and a Copa America win for Messi with them being heavy favorites to win it all, until that Saudi Arabia game and we all knew what happened, Dawsari scored to cause that upset, Saudi got a national holiday and Messi was in real danger of being knocked out of a chance to get the ultimate prize and then the Mexico Game also happened, Argentina was cagey against Mexico for the better part of 70 minutes until Messi does what Messi does best and bam, slots past Ochoa and from then, it was a full on rampage, G/A against every single opponent he faced, including a brace in this said final. I remember this game like the back of my mind with the game kicking off in a dominant fashion for Argentina, their fluid positional play and 2-0 by half time and my mind went back to my first memory of watching football, I am a Germany fan and that final was a moment where it felt like the hero losing despite everything that happened but I was clearly celebrating because of my team winning, karma really became something after that but let’s get back to Messi. My brother is an Argentina fan and I remember he never became this stressed in his entire life, heart attacks, slowed breaths, labored breaths infact but it was all worth it because of that one man, that one moment where he ended up being the best of all time, it was always a monkey on the back for him, Maradona, Pele, Ronaldo and 8 years later from that night in Maracana, he walked away with a full crown of jewels and as the king of the hill that night.