LUSAIL, Qatar — As he wrapped Enzo Fernández tightly in his arms, Lionel Messi could not help it. His Argentina teammates were screaming, full pelt, toward them. At their back, the stands were melting into a writhing, bubbling soup of sky blue and white. Messi saw it all and, for the first time in what has felt like a long time, he smiled.
For someone who has spent the better part of two decades delivering moments of rare, soaring pleasure to millions of people on a weekly basis, Messi looks happy surprisingly infrequently. He tends, most of the time, toward the serious.