Lionel Messi turned Argentina’s 2022 World Cup run into the breakthrough that had long eluded him, scoring seven goals and setting up three more in seven matches as his team beat France 4-2 on penalties in the final. It was the first World Cup title of his career, and it came after years of knockout-stage heartbreak that had made every major tournament feel like another test he had not yet passed.
Messi was 13 when he joined FC Barcelona in 2000 and became a first-team starter four years later, then spent 17 years as a senior player collecting 35 major trophies while the club won La Liga 10 times, the UEFA Champions League four times and the Copa del Rey seven times. That club record is the reason his international record stood out so sharply for so long: Argentina lost the 2007 Copa America final, fell to Germany in the 2010 World Cup quarterfinals and again in the 2014 World Cup final, then lost the 2015 and 2016 Copa America finals to Chile on penalties, with Messi announcing his retirement in 2016 before later returning to the national team.
By the time the 2022 World Cup began, the questions around him were no longer about talent. They were about whether the greatest player of his era could finally carry Argentina through one last, decisive campaign after a 2018 tournament in which he scored just one goal and Argentina went out to France in the round of 16. That is what made the final against France so loaded: Messi scored two goals, Argentina won on penalties, and the ending finally matched the career that had been building since he was a teenager in Barcelona.
The relief carried beyond Qatar. Argentina later beat Brazil 1-0 to win the 2021 Copa America and defended that momentum by beating Colombia 1-0 in the 2024 Copa America final, but the 2022 World Cup remains the moment that changed the story around Messi for good. The unresolved question now is not whether he can still collect honors, but how much more of that final chapter he has left to write.
