Batistuta praises Messi as Valdano says he has conquered the World Cup

Lionel Messi did not merely survive the World Cup pressure in Qatar, he bent it to his will at 35. He finished the tournament with 7 goals and 3 assists, won the Golden Ball as the best player in the competition, and then lifted the trophy after Argentina beat France 4-2 on penalties following a 3-3 final at Lusail Stadium on December 18, 2022.

That final framed the scale of the feat. France’s Kylian Mbappé finished as the tournament’s top scorer with 8 goals and won the Golden Boot, while Messi came one goal behind in second place. Yet the Argentine captain’s value was larger than the scoring table. He received the Golden Ball before raising the World Cup, a sequence that captured how thoroughly he had controlled the tournament’s biggest stage.

Messi’s run also rewrote a long-standing Argentine benchmark. Gabriel Batistuta had held the country’s World Cup scoring record with 10 goals in 12 matches across the 1994, 1998 and 2002 tournaments. Messi matched that total against the Netherlands and then went beyond it before the end of Qatar 2022, turning a national record into another measure of his durability. Batistuta responded with public praise and made clear that the loss of the mark did not trouble him, saying he had enjoyed owning it while it lasted. He was also moved to tears after Argentina secured the title.

Jorge Valdano, who won the World Cup with Argentina in 1986, placed Messi’s achievement in sharper historical context. He described Messi as the center of the 2022 triumph, a player whose value went beyond talent alone and reflected experience, reading of the game and control of moments that decide tournaments. That argument matters because it separates Messi’s performance from nostalgia. In Qatar, he was not being celebrated for what he had been. He was dictating what Argentina became.

For Argentina, the victory was its third World Cup title, after 1978 and 1986, and it ended the nation’s longest wait for the trophy. For Messi, it closed the gap on the one major prize that had remained beyond his reach.