“To watch Argentina at the World Cup feels like a religious experience: the spiritual fervour, the adoration, the total devotion to someone seen as a supreme being. It was like that in the 1980s when Diego Maradona was at the peak of his extraordinary powers; in the 1990s, when they waited for a new saviour to come and for decades until Lionel Messi led them to glory in 2022. Many of the supporters’ banners carry echoes of religious iconography. The most famous is a mocked-up image of Maradona and Messi together, fingers touching, like Michelangelo’s fresco of The Creation of Adam. …”
NYT/ATH (Video)
YouTube: Lionel Messi Scores First Career HAT TRICK in FIFA World Cup™ 🇦🇷 Ties Most Goals at Men’s World Cup