Messi's last dance: "Before I didn't realize what I was experiencing"

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The number 1 press room at the Qatar National Convention Center is huge.

It's not a newsroom, actually.

It is an

, with capacity for a minimum of

(they don't mess around here and if someone needs to double the capacity, it doubles, although they don't explain how), and there were very few less than those 295 when

.

With white shorts and the upper part, also white, of the tracksuit, the captain of Argentina arrived at the place where he had managed to collapse.

FIFA, on the intranet that it uses to communicate all the press actions of the teams, had advertised him on the posters since Sunday night, but during the day

.

In the same way that the rumor spread that he was injured in an ankle.

Both false.

Some journalists waited for more than an hour at the door, but it all turned out to be a problem of whether or not to bring a video camera

.

And then Leo arrived, who for 13 minutes left an

in the air , of being before his last dance,

.

At 35 years old, he dares not say that he is in the prime of his life, but he admits that if he is not, he is a lot like him.

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"I don't know if it is the happiest moment, but what is certain is that it grabs me more mature. I try to enjoy everything to the fullest, live everything with great intensity, face each moment that I have to live.

And many important things went unnoticed.

Now I am much more aware of all this, so what I want is to enjoy". A silence then ran through the room, because beyond a previous sentence, where he explicitly recognized that this is "possibly my last World Cup", that reflection From someone like Messi it sounded like a farewell, at least at that moment when one begins to think about how to say goodbye.

Messi is the leader of Argentina.

He is despite his love and hate relationship with those stripes, which

.

He returned at the hands of Scaloni and Aimar, he did it little by little, witnessing the transformation of a team that liberated itself with the victory in the Copa América last year.

In this team, unlike what happened in 2018, where the Russian concentration was hell for him, he is comfortable.

He is the leader of a group where 19 boys make their World Cup debut.

What are you going to tell them?

"I am here for the illusion, for the desire to fulfill that great dream that I lack. You never have to stay with the desire, you have to try.

A World Cup is special, you never know if there will be another, so nothing, live the experience and enjoy it".

The verb to enjoy was said more than 20 times.

It was the most repeated word of him.

She did it in a slow, mature tone, but with that concealed smile that explains someone happy, calm, comfortable with everything that surrounds them.

He even greeted those who know him, Argentine journalists, and his last words before leaving were, once again, along the lines of deciphering the new Messi.

"

Today, enjoying is above anything."

And of course, if Messi enjoys it, football also enjoys it.

In Qatar Messi aspires to get past the quarterfinals of the 2006 and 2010 editions, to forget the final lost to Germany in 2014 and to erase directly

, swept by France in the round of 16.

Scaloni's discreet profile, a renewed team and maturity make Leo (165 games, 91 goals for the Albicelestes) a different star.

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• Argentine Soccer Team

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• Leo Messi