sport news MARTIN SAMUEL: Lionel Messi can ill afford an off day in his last shot at the ... trends now

There used to be a segment on the original Fantasy Football show, about Pele. It implied he was rubbish. There would be a clip of him skying a free-kick high over the bar, missing an open goal, getting his jump for a header entirely wrong.

The joke, obviously, was that Pele wasn’t rubbish at all but that every player, no matter how great, can make a mistake, have a bad game, miss a sitter, take a lousy free-kick. All frequent, forgettable calamities, even for the very best. All things that Lionel Messi has to avoid on Sunday. He can’t miss that chance.

He can’t have an off day. If he does, given his importance to Argentina, he will probably lose. And if he loses then his last chance to shape his legacy, to rest in the pantheon beside Pele and Diego Maradona, to have comedians crack wise at his expense because he is so plainly, so indisputably, one of a triumvirate of the greatest footballers ever, will be gone.

So, no pressure, then.

Sunday sees Messi’s last World Cup match. There is no debating that now. Lionel Scaloni, his coach, attempted to buy him another four years by saying he could still be playing in 2026, but Messi was having none of that.

He will be 39 then. He will have noted what the desire to stay relevant did to the reputation of his great contemporary and rival Cristiano Ronaldo; maybe what it did to Maradona, too, failing a drugs test in 1994 because he needed a chemical cocktail just to get him up and around the pitch.

Either way, Messi goes out on a high. This has been his best, his most influential, World Cup. He has been one of its greatest players, even at 35. He is central to its show reel. Even if Argentina are not a match for France this weekend, it will not reflect on Messi’s contribution to this World Cup.

Yet a high is not the summit. His place in posterity, his legacy, how he is perceived across the ages, that is different. Pele and Maradona, the two players that vie for a place at the pinnacle, won World Cups. Pele was the star of several brilliant Brazilian teams; Maradona, according to popular myth, dragged Argentina there almost on his own. 

That may be an exaggeration. Excluding Maradona, Argentina’s 1986 team, at a time when many South American players did not leave the continent, won six Copa Libertadores titles, 20 Argentinian titles, three La Liga titles, two UEFA Cups, one Champions Cup of CONCACAF and the Ecuadorian title.

Yet Maradona’s achievement is no mirage. He won a World Cup; to emulate him, therefore, Messi must, too.

If that doesn’t sound easy, it is because it isn’t. It is incredibly hard to shepherd a storied sporting career over the line undamaged. So few manage it.

Sir Alex Ferguson, Dan Carter, Michael Jordan, John Elway, Rocky Marciano. We like to think of success being the destiny of the greats but sport isn’t merciful like that. It was Zinedine Zidane’s destiny to depart winning the World Cup for France, remember.

He went out instead headbutting Marco Materazzi of Italy, a player not in his class. Zidane was shown a red card, Italy won the World Cup, Zidane’s moment of madness was blamed. Brian Clough, one of the greatest and most charismatic managers in the game, left it only when Nottingham Forest had been relegated, and drink had taken a very obvious toll on his powers and his health.

This is the problem. White hot talent, that spark of genius, is fleeting. It doesn’t last. In art, moments of the greatest creation burn out. The sharpest minds become

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