He was not even supposed to be here.
Lionel Messi, who retired from international football a decade ago and who everyone thought would sail off into the sunset four years ago, is remarkably off to another World Cup final.
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Reigning champions Argentina gave themselves the chance to defend their title against European champions Spain by breaking England hearts with yet another last gasp escape act this World Cup.
Late goals from Enzo Fernandez and Lautaro Martinez handed Argentina a 2-1 semi-final victory against the Three Lions and Messi was the architect of England’s demise in Atlanta.
With nine dribbles Messi mesmerised England’s defenders, but his two assists inflicted the lethal blows.
“They have Lionel Messi. They have the GOAT. The greatest of all time,” former England defender Micah Richards said on the BBC.
“Moments. We thought it could have been Bellingham or Kane, but this is why he is the king. Remarkable what he can do.
“Walk around the pitch and then he comes alive when the ball comes to his feet. This genius comes into play and sometimes that is just the difference.
“With Mexico and Norway they didn’t have the quality on the day, but if you give Messi the time and space you will get punished.”
Argentina STUN England with late goals | 02:54
The first assist was a regulation pass to Fernandez whose wonder strike from outside the box equalised in the 85th minute.
The second was a work of art to evade England’s back five and find Martinez unmarked at the box post, with his non-preferred right boot.
“Alexis Mac Allister had just struck the post with a low shot. Djed Spence, who chased the day to the end here, managed to nip in front of Messi for a second and nick the ball away. But it was only ever on loan,” The Guardian’s Barney Ronay wrote of the match-winning passage of play.
“Facing two full-backs now, Spence and Nico O’Reilly, Messi simply eased into the space where a third should have been, all alone in that portable little patch of green.
“The cross from his right foot was perfectly, tactfully floated into the only logical area, like somebody very slowly and patiently explaining a maths problem.
“For a moment the ball just seemed to hang there, a lovely soft white orb, the day stretching out, as everyone in the stadium became Messi, seeing the moment before it happened.”
That stroke of genius secured Messi, who famously strolls around the pitch at times, a fifth man of the match award this World Cup.
“Messi barely had a kick for an hour, and left Atlanta with the man of the match award. Now he marches – or perhaps walks – on to another World Cup final,” The Independent’s Lawrence Ostlere wrote.
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He has incredibly received the man of the match honour in all four of Argentina’s knockout stage victories – against Cabo Verde, Egypt and Switzerland en route to the Switzerland.
While he also collected the gong for a hat-trick in their opening group stage game against Algeria.
With eight goals and four assists in this tournament, he has edged past Kylian Mbappe in the golden boot standings.
If Messi scores in the final, he will edge past the French superstar’s goal tally and not need assists as the tie-breaker.
All of this at 39 years of age is astonishing.
And Messi’s brilliance has meant that when he sets foot on New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium on Monday morning, he will join Brazilian legend Cafu as the only men to play in the three World Cup finals.
It is crazy to think that there are so many reasons why the global superstar, who made his way at Barcelona before a brief spell in Paris and is now plying his trade with the David Beckham-owned Inter Miami, could so easily have not go there.
He briefly called time on his international career all the way back in 2016.
Messi had picked up five of his eight Ballon d’Ors by then but the weight of another crushing defeat was heavy on his shoulders.
Ironically, that decision came at the same venue where he will lock horns with Barcelona’s new star boy Yamine Lamal, who Messi once gave a bath as a baby in one of football’s most bizarre stories.
“The national team is ended for me,” Messi told reporters after Argentina lost the final of Copa America Centenario to Chile on penalties.
“It is not for me, after four finals. It is the decision I’ve made, I believe that, yes.”
A nationwide campaign convinced him to don the blue and white again before the 2018 World Cup, but it was in Qatar four years later when his crowning moment arrived.
The 170cm tall magician, the heir to Diego Maradona’s throne, finally hoisted the World Cup trophy aloft when Argentina defeated France on penalties in an epic final.
Messi scored a brace, Mbappe a hat-trick, the contest was level at 2-2 after 90 minutes, 3-3 after extra-time and then Argentina took the shootout 4-2.
It was widely accepted that it was the perfect farewell for Messi.
His World Cup demons had been banished.
“Messi’s first (World Cup final), Rio de Janeiro in 2014, caused him nightmares for years afterwards,” Ostlere wrote.
“Messi missed a crucial one-on-one with Manuel Neuer, before Mario Gotze scored Germany’s winner in extra time. It would be eight years until he returned to the final, scoring twice in Doha and rolling home the most audacious penalty in the shootout to finally get his hands on the trophy he most prized, laying to rest the ghosts that haunted him.
“Having spent so many frustrating years chasing international success, facing scrutiny and criticism at home in Argentina, he might now bow out with a second World Cup to go with those two late-career Copa America glories.
“Messi’s career can essentially be broken into two halves: a spell for Barcelona that altered how football is played, how it is understood; and a spell for Argentina to alter how history is written, how his story will be told.”
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The following year he left PSG for Inter Miami.
The MLS has long been viewed as a retirement village for the games greats.
It was lauded that Messi had rejected the advances of the Saudi Pro League unlike his long-time rival Cristiano Ronaldo.
But the obituaries were written as stars of a similar age like Thomas Muller, Luis Suarez and Sergio Busquets who also play in America have not featured at international level in many years.
It was unsure if Messi would make it to this World Cup.
And if was, it was widely believed that he could not do so from Miami.
He was seen to be getting away with coasting in an inferior domestic league.
While there was an overwhelming view that he had departed Europe because Father Time removed his ability to press manically without the ball as he had done under esteemed manager Pep Guardiola in his early days at Barcelona.
The Catalan giants even took a little dig at their greatest ever player in saying Messi had chosen to “compete in a league with fewer demands” when they announced he would not be returning to the club, and had instead opted to join Beckham’s franchise, which had only made its MLS debut three years earlier.
“With Messi, if he really wants to get that appetite, I think he needs to go somewhere that he’s going to get better competition for himself,” former Premier League defender Terry Phelan told goal.com last year.
“It’s too easy. You look at his stats, you look at videos, it’s like PlayStation for him at the moment. It’s not healthy.”
Messi leads all-time escape in comeback | 02:02
But Messi did not listen.
He was hellbent on making more history and revealed after the England win that a training block at home in Argentina last December set him on the path towards more World Cup glory.
He now has scored a goal or assisted a teammate in his last 11 World Cup games.
He has scored 35 goals and provided 30 assists for Argentina at major tournaments, with a record 21 goals and 12 assists at the World Cup.
Ten of those assists have come in the knockout stages – no one else has more than eight.
But while the numbers continue to highlight his greatness, the conspiracy theories that referees and FIFA favour Messi and Argentina persist.
It does not bother him, however.
“It’s crazy what we have achieved… this can make someone sad, they can say whatever they want,” he told reporters after the semi-final victory.
“This group shows no one is giving us anything for free.”
For Messi, it is his countrymen’s fierce will to win that explains their freakish ability to regularly get themselves out of jail.
They were taken to extra-time by Cabo Verde.
They trailed 2-0 against Egypt.
They were taken to extra-time by Switzerland.
And they trailed England 1-0.
Four years ago, they even lost their opening game of the tournament to Saudi Arabia.
But Argentina are undoubtedly the World Cup’s comeback kings and Messi lauded his team’s mentality to once again lift them off the canvas.
“This team never stops trying. We went out there playing football and with real determination,” Messi said after the game.
“We pinned them back in their own half and showed we could win it in normal time, without going to extra time.
“No Argentine wanted to lose this match. The way this entire World Cup has unfolded has been incredible, especially considering the significance of this semi-final against England. No one wanted to lose today, setting aside any other context, but that’s how it is.”
Of course a hefty sprinkling of Messi magic has helped Argentina punch their way out when they have been pinned against the ropes.
For all the talk of Thomas Tuchel’s defensive tactics, England’s players going into their shells and finger pointing at referees, The Guardian’s Barney Ronay stressed that Messi’s influence should not be undersold.
For it always seems to be “Messi’s day, and Messi’s moment”.
“He will now play his third World Cup final, the oldest outfield player ever to appear on that stage, as well as the greatest. It has been different this time too,” Ronay continued.
“There had already been something new in Messi’s appearances through that edgy run to the final. He looked at times on the brink of something, like a man waking up with a start.
“Messi has always had one key advantage over every other player. He gets to play with Messi every game. And Messi makes every other player in his team better.
“He brings a separate gravity field, bathing teammates in that borrowed light, And he always has the best time, because every game is a Messi game.
“Think about it: this is a man who has literally never played a game of football where Messi is not in it. Every day is a Messi day. No wonder he loves football.
“As a spectator there are times when you feel like tapping him on the shoulder and saying: “You do know it’s not always like this, don’t you?”
This World Cup will be treated to one more “Messi day” and this time the home of the NFL’s New York Giants and New York Jets might actually be the final stop in the Argentine legend’s riveting 20-year international career.