Hell, everyone. This is the last post of this series. Below are the previous parts.
FIFA's World Cup Corruption: An Honest Look At Van Gaal's Comment
FIFA's World Cup Corruption: The Depth of Corruption
FIFA's World Cup Corruption: A Warning to Those Celebrating Van Gaal's Comments
So, without further ado, let's get into the final part of this series.
To start this post, let's be clear about something: The reason Van Gaal's comments resonated and even celebrated by many fans is that the alternative was literally unbearable for these people. By "These people", I refer mainly to Real Madrid fans, Cristiano Ronaldo fans, and Cristiano Ronaldo himself. If the World Cup can be fixed for Messi then everything can as well. This applies to tournaments, and even extending certain individual awards time limit for a certain player to win it. This applies to propaganda for a certain player and so on. However, that's not the main issue here.
We find ourselves at this point not because of a fight between two camps, the Barcelona/Messi fans camp vs. the Real Madrid/Cristiano Ronaldo fans camp, but because of a monster created by the latter.
I have touched on this World Cup debate countless times before, but there's a key point in history we must all be aware of to realize when this World Cup monster was created, and how it was Real Madrid fans, Cristiano Ronaldo fans, Maradona fans, and Cristiano Ronaldo the ones behind this creation. If this monster wasn't created, Messi winning the World Cup wouldn't have been that big of a deal. So, let's get to the point where this monster was created.
The 2010 World Cup
I have also touched on this before, in fact you can read it in details by clicking here, but let's go through a summary. Maradona was coaching Argentina at the time and hopes were at an all-time high. However, Maradona was a horrible coach. He admitted himself to not be aware of who Muller was ahead of the match and went into the match with a formation that could only be described as 4-1-5. He also opted not to include the key players from the treble winners, Inter Milan, at the time. Funny enough, those players were exactly what he needed.
We're talking about opting to avoid Javier Zanetti when Argentina literally didn't have a right-back and had to resort to Ottamendi as a right-back, he also didn't call up Esteban Cambiasso when he clearly needed a ball-playing midfielder to move the ball upfront, instead, he played Mascherano as a sole midfielder. He didn't feature Samuel, and again those were players who were fresh from winning the treble just less than 2 months ago. So, not only were those the best options for Maradona, but they were also the only ones, still, he opted not to call them.
Argentina got humiliated by an expected result. However, this is the point where Messi's "failure with Argentina" monster began, Messi was left alone to collect the bill for this humiliation of failure despite the fact that there were people who deserved more blame, namely Maradona and Argentina's FA for even considering Maradona as a coach.
So, things went on, and Messi became the only player in history who wasn't judged by the titles and trophies he won, but rather by the ones he didn't. Reaching the World Cup final in 2014 didn't help, reaching the Copa America finals didn't help either. Messi was still judged by the fact that he didn't win. That was the point in history where Maradona fans, Real Madrid fans, and Cristiano Ronaldo fans joined forces and kept that monster alive.
Keeping the Monster Fed
In 2016, Portugal won the Euro. That's when Cristiano Ronaldo himself entered this debate and started making comparisons and saying stuff like it was harder for him to lead Portugal to win the Euro than it was for Messi to win the World Cup with Argentina. These comments came despite the fact that Cristiano himself had a rather weak showing in that tournament as Portugal made it out of the group stage with no win and Cristiano only scored in one match against Hungary. That was followed by him not scoring until a semi-final against Wales and then he was injured and out in the final that was decided without him.
I don't consider that Cristiano Ronaldo was bad, but the way it was sold made him sound like a hero, which he really wasn't, it was Quaresma who scored the winner against Croatia in the quarter-final, Cristiano didn't contribute to that goal in case you're wondering. In the game against Poland, it was Renato Sanches who scored the draw, again, Cristiano wasn't involved until the penalty shootout. Then he did score the first goal against Wales. Which is a good thing, of course.
I personally see it as a normal showing as no man can carry a team to win a title. It's a team sport and always will be. However, that simply wasn't the image Cristiano and his fans were pushing. There was even a belief that Eder only scored because Cristiano was telling him to shoot from the bench. A silly belief since he wouldn't be able to hear him, obviously.
This was also the time were the idea of Cristiano being a leader as a captain and Messi lacking character began. However, all of that really isn't the point.
The point was that after his Euro 2016 win, Cristiano Ronaldo came out saying that a player can only be a legend if they win a trophy with the national team as disrespectful as that statement was for many legends. This statement was an answer to a question about Messi.
Cristiano wasn't saying that he is better than Messi only, no, he was saying that Messi can't even be called a legend since Messi hadn't won a title with Argentina. Cristiano had a certain obsession with this issue in particular. Even when he joined Al-Nassr, a move clearly motivated by money, he stated that "Saudi beat Argentina".
So statements like, "Saudi beat Argentina", "I would never replace my five UEFA Champions League titles with the World Cup" as someone was offering, that was the insinuation after all. Also, in the legend statement, Cristiano was saying that Messi can't even be considered a legend, not that he thought he was the GOAT and Messi was the second man chair at the table, no, he was saying that Messi doesn't even belong to sitting at the table.
The Hypocrisy of a Camp
As I said above, this is not an issue between one camp and another, this is an issue that the Real Madrid fans, the Cristiano fans, and the Cristiano camp have within itself. They're the ones contradicting themselves here. They're the ones who said Messi needed the World Cup to be considered the GOAT, Barcelona and Messi fans never agreed to that. If you ask Barcelona fans in 2019 before Argentina even won a single title of their recent run, someone like @iamchuks on this platform, who was the GOAT, the answer would be Messi. He definitely has the same answer now, Messi is the GOAT camp remained the same.
Messi fans remained consistent throughout the last four years. Messi was the GOAT for them regardless. It was the other camp that hinged their pick of Messi's status as the GOAT on Messi winning a title with Argentina, and when he won the COPA America, they created excuses. When Argentina won a title over the EURO 2020 champions, they created excuses, and now that Messi and Argentina won the World Cup itself, we find ourselves dragged into this disgusting world of conspiracy.
This camp is dragging all of us into this debate which honestly questions every single thing in football history in the process as I stated in previous parts just because this camp simply can't live with the monster they created. No one, absolutely no one told you to bet on Messi not winning the World Cup to be considered the GOAT. You could have simply disagreed but instead, you resorted to rules and conditions that you now broke.
Everyone else remained consistent, I personally don't even consider the World Cup a decider when it comes to anything. I still consider Flick to be a great manager that I would love to have in my team in case Arteta leaves. The World Cup is seven matches and that's not enough to judge ANYTHING as I stated before
So, this is a problem that a certain camp has within itself. This camp needs to resort to its contradictions and then talk about football. Can FIFA or any football entity decide on a trophy for one person? Yes or no? It can't be yes in just this specific instant and no for the rest. It can't be just this World Cup and not any other World Cup, UEFA Champions League, local league, local cup, individual awards, and the list goes on. So, yes or no?
What made Messi winning the World Cup such a hard pill to swallow is that Messi, since 2010, has been told that this is what he needs to do. That was the excuse used to undermine all of Messi's accomplishments by this camp. Four UEFA Champions League titles? No trophy with Argentina though. 91 goals in one season? No trophy with Argentina though, and so on.
Then it evolved. Winning the 2019 COPA America and becoming the player with the most Golden Balls? No World Cup though. Beating Italy and winning a second title with Italy? No World Cup though. So, now it has to be that the World Cup is fixed because there's nowhere else to go.
So, this is not our issue, this is the problem of a big portion of Real Madrid fans, Cristiano Ronaldo fans, and Cristiano himself. We're not going to cuddle the child having a tantrum and banging on the floor with all fours. You were trying to force everyone to live in this world and we refused. We're not to pick this one tournament in history, devalue it, and completely erase it just to fit into your pathetic contradiction, we just won't.
I am more inclined to buy into what Van Gaal said than I am to submit to this logic. If my friend brought up what Van Gaal said and proposed it as a possibility, I would buy into it being a possibility. What I am not inclined to do is humour these childish theories wanting to exclude one certain event in history and keep the rest clean. This is your problem, this is your denial phase, You need to work on it and we're not going to humour it.
God is dead and we killed him, Messi won the World Cup, Messi remains a World Cup winner and we watched it, How must shall we, the excuse-makers of all excuses, console ourselves? That which was the holiest and mightiest excuse of all that the world has yet possessed has bled to death.
Your criteria have been met, it's up to you whether to process it or not. It's over. Grow up and move on, or don't, but it is over. It has been 13 years of bullshit and it's over.