Lionel Messi, wearing a black Qatari robe over his blue-and-white Argentina shirt, kissed the World Cup, shuffled toward his teammates and hoisted the golden trophy high in the air.
It was an iconic sight that finally — definitively — places the soccer superstar in the pantheon of the game’s greatest players.
Messi’s once-in-a-generation career is complete: He is a World Cup champion.
In one of the wildest finals in the tournament’s 92-year history, the 35-year-old Messi scored two goals then another Sunday in a shootout as Argentina beat France 4-2 on penalties after a 3-3 draw to claim a third World Cup title.
Amid all that, France forward Kylian Mbappé — the heir apparent to the 35-year-old Messi — scored the first hat trick in a final in 56 years, doing all he could to emulate Brazil great Pelé as a champion at his first two World Cups.
It wasn’t enough.
Now there’s no debate. Messi joins Pelé — a record three-time World Cup champion — and Diego Maradona, the late Argentina great with whom Messi was so often compared, in an exclusive club of the best soccer players of all time.
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