I still recall, as many do, the saying of the late football icon Diego Maradona, that football would become more of an economic industry, with four quarters introduced to bring advertising and marketing into the game, compromising its beauty and magic.

Of course, Maradona's remarks at the time were a criticism of FIFA, and at the 2026 World Cup we witnessed that criticism become reality in the short breaks for players in the first and second halves for commercial ads on broadcasting channels.

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The 2026 World Cup featured 48 teams, and everyone expected some matches to be boring and without fans, but the opposite happened; the idea succeeded, and to be fair, the attendance was impressive and the technical level was high quality. Despite the initially unacceptable procedures for some teams during security inspections, and the case of the red card cancellation for the American player, a historical precedent that FIFA's president might pay for in the next elections, and what has been and will be said about FIFA favoring Argentina and Messi, the World Cup succeeded worldwide in media, attendance, and technical terms in every sense of the word. Today, the curtain falls on the biggest global football event after long days of suspense, attention, and excitement, and a fierce race among stars for the top scorer title, with Argentina and Spain reaching the final, despite the strength of the French team in all its matches, except the match it lost to Spain in the knockout stages, and it did not qualify for the final. Messi was the event, the dazzle, and the creativity, at the age of 39, where he was not a guest of honor; he was the top scorer, the top assist provider, and the most decisive for his country in difficult times. What catches the attention of observers in the story of the Argentine fans is their love for Messi, who won the 2022 title and reached the current final, yet the tango fans still raise a picture of Maradona at every occasion in an endless infatuation, and chant his name in a fan phenomenon that is not repeated, even with Pele among Brazilian fans, who won three World Cup titles, the first at the age of 17. The Argentina-Spain final has a story called 'Messi and Lamine,' from a childhood photo to the World Cup final... a story close to fiction. In 2007, a photo was taken that no one expected would one day become one of the most famous photos in football history. The Argentine star Lionel Messi was participating in a charity photo shoot organized by Barcelona in collaboration with UNICEF and the Spanish newspaper 'Sport,' when he held a baby in his arms during the photo session. Yamal's presence in that session came after his family won a charity raffle that allowed them to participate in the photo shoot with one of Barcelona's stars, bringing together Messi and the child who would become years later one of the most prominent football stars in the world. Nearly 19 years later, the two protagonists of that photo return to the spotlight, but this time not in front of photographers' lenses, but on the biggest football stage in the world, when they meet in the 2026 World Cup final between Argentina and Spain. The irony is that Messi, who has become one of the greatest football players in history, today faces the player whom many consider one of the most prominent stars of the new generation, in a scene that embodies the passing of the torch between generations. The difference between them is nearly twenty years; Messi is going through one of his last World Cup stops, while Yamal is experiencing his first final in his international career, as the final brings together the experience of a legend who made glory and the ambition of a talent seeking to write his history.