Lionel Messi and the unmistakable feeling of an ending

At first he sank to the ground with a grimace. The game lasted a few seconds and then came the collective sigh.

Lionel Messi had fallen. And Lionel Messi is not a player who will go down for nothing.

The Argentine playmaker and talisman clutched his right ankle. He had fallen of his own accord, with no apparent kick that could have caused the injury he knew meant his night was over.

He took off his right boot and stood up gingerly. The physiotherapists asked him how he was doing, but they probably knew. He shuffled to the sidelines, each step a small dagger in the Argentine hearts. Then the sign went up: Nicolas Gonzalez on, Messi off.

Messi walked slowly to the bench and threw his boot on the ground. He sank into his chair and put his face in his hands. Leandro Paredes, his teammate, ruffled his hair but said nothing. What was there to say?

A second or two later, the camera returned to Messi and zoomed in on the most recognizable face in football. Humanity even. And Messi, the arch stoic, could no longer contain the emotion.

The crowd chanted his name. Messi cried.

The tears were for the moment: Argentina needed him; that is always the case – but it was impossible to abstract them from the wider context. Because wherever Messi goes in this extended career outro, it is always accompanied by the unmistakable sense of an ending.

Messi is 37. He confirmed earlier this week that this would be his last edition of the competition. The atmospheric music around the Argentinian camp suggests that this might be his last major tournament, period. He will be 38 when the next World Cup starts in the United States, Mexico and Canada, and he will be 39 during the tournament.

Those endless summer days spent watching Messi around the football fields of our souls? They could now be numbered.

Stopping is not an attractive prospect for any athlete. Athletes die twice, they say. Messi’s incredible longevity – and continued excellence – has been an effective shield against retirement talk, but no one can run forever. At some point, everything you do becomes the last time. Everything is shot through with a heavy finality.

Messi clearly seems to have some idea of ​​what awaits him on the other side of the great beyond. “I’m a bit afraid that it will all end,” he told ESPN Argentina earlier this year. “I try not to think about it. I try to enjoy it. I do that more now, because I realize that there is not much time left.”

Here, on a stifling, charged night at Hard Rock Stadium, he certainly wasn’t counting on being denied some of that remaining balance. As he sat there on the bench, with an ice pack on his swollen ankle and a yellow vest covering his blue and white jersey, it was tempting to wonder what was going through Messi’s mind.

(Juan Mabromata/AFP via Getty Images)

Maybe in that case he just became a fan. Perhaps the vision of the team playing without him – an image he will have to get used to in the coming decades – has twisted his already cramped nerve into new, uncomfortable shapes.

After the match, Argentina head coach Lionel Scaloni said Messi did not want to come off the pitch but his injury made any other option redundant.

“Leo has something that everyone should have,” Scaloni said. “He is the best in history and even with an ankle like that he doesn’t want to come off.

“It’s not because he’s selfish, it’s because he doesn’t want to let his teammates down. He was born to be on the field.”

At least there was relief in the end. When Lautaro Martinez scored the winning goal four minutes before midnight in Miami, it was telling that the largest group of players were nowhere near the scorer. No, Argentina’s players flocked to Messi, their guiding light.

(Juan Mabromata/AFP via Getty Images)

“When we talk about players who have left their mark on the history of football, we try to prolong their careers when we start to see the end,” his Inter Miami coach, Tata Martino, said recently. “I believe Leo and his family are preparing for the moment when that end will come. It comes for everyone.”

The time has not yet come for Messi. He will continue in the MLS as this injury heals, and perhaps even do his part to get Argentina to the World Cup, but this was the final installment of Messi Does Tournaments and another way station on the way to The End. The real ending. The day that this absurd, magical, laughable, good football player jumps into the past.

“I’m lucky to be able to do something I’m passionate about,” Messi said in the Apple documentary about his American adventure. “I know these are my last years and I know that if I don’t have this, I will miss it very much because no matter how many things I do, nothing will be like this.”

Possibly no more grand finals. No more evenings like this, raw and glorious for his country. And so he cried, long before the festivities. You could understand.

(Top photos: Juan Mabromata; Buda Mendez; Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images; design: Ray Orr)