Messi’s final World Cup match for Argentina: A redemption story to inspire everyone

Lionel Messi, playing his last ever World Cup match is an everlasting inspiration with how he overcame repeated heartbreaks and obstacles to take the Argentine team to the path of their recent success. If there is one thing that we can learn from Messi, it is to tackle challenges head-on and come out as victors. His redemption story with the national team is a basis of how there is always a stage for a resurgence after you have been down with failures.

With success comes high expectations

Messi's career achievements are full of success.  From winning every trophy imaginable with his then club FC Barcelona to winning Balon D'or a record number of times, he was at the top of his game. It is only natural that people's expectations were getting higher regarding Argentina's chances of winning trophies with Messi at the helm.

For anyone who has worked hard and achieved success, this burden of high expectations is very relatable. The more you succeed in life the greater the expectation to achieve further.

Failing to fulfil high expectations leads to despair

It seemed the perfect script was written — Messi was waiting to lift the World Cup trophy in 2014 with Argentina, but the reality hit hard at that moment. Argentina lost to Germany, and suddenly Messi was criticised for not giving his 100 percent for the country. In the following years, he lost two finals with Argentina at the Copa America Cup. Add to that a severely disappointing performance in the 2018 World Cup, and it seemed like Messi will never be able to neither lead nor replicate his club-level success with the national team.

When you are burdened with extremely high expectations and somehow manage to not fulfil most of them, despair takes hold. The feeling of not being enough despite giving your best drains you, and during times like these nothing you do feels enough to justify your failures. As we all know, success has many partners, but failure has absolutely none.

Resurgence begins when we re-start

After so many heartbreaks with the national team and a tearful exit from his boyhood club Barcelona, it was time for Messi to come back stronger. It is the innate nature of human beings that when we are faced with adversity, we tend to tackle it head-on and come out on the side of victory, and that is what Messi did.

With renewed focus, Messi returned to the national team, this time not taking failure as an option. Thanks to his leadership, Argentina finally broke the deadlock of winning international trophies, by winning the Copa America 2021, beating their arch-rival Brazil on their home turf. In FIFA World Cup 2022, Messi has been one of the best players, racking up goals and assists, but most importantly, showing up at those crucial moments for the team when they needed him the most, and this time, deliver he did, in all fronts.

Whether Argentina wins the World Cup or not, the redemption story of Messi with Argentina teaches us that even the best among us face failure, and get so demoralised that they want to give up. When we feel like we are down and out, we have to rebuild ourselves from scratch and keep going at a new pace, so that we can come back stronger, just like Messi did.