For Lionel Messi this World Cup is over. Arguably the greatest player of this and any generation traipsed off the pitch at the end of this astonishing game, his head down, his shoulders slumped, his eyes glazed, knowing that his chances of ever adding a World Cup winners’ medal to his groaning trophy cabinet are now over.
But football does not pause long. If the king is dead, long live the new king. At 19, most of us were sleeping off a hangover after spending too much of our student loan in the union bar. At 19, Kylian Mbappe has just produced the most astonishing individual performance of this tournament.
The France number 10 was everything the Argentina number 10 wasn’t here, exuding the quality that used to be Messi’s trademark: he was the man who made the difference.
Anyone who feared that, following the spirited delights of the group stage, Russia 2018 would be submerged in cagey caution should have been watching this game. It was magnificently bonkers, a heavyweight slugfest of unhinged glory, in which superb goals were swapped with a cavalier flourish, that fizzed with energy and commitment until the last second of added time. Exactly 20 years on from Argentina against England, it was like St Etienne all over again in the Kazan Arena.
And for the French supporters, this was the performance they had long craved. This was the France that, Didier Deschamps’ small army of critics insist, was there all along, stifled by his unimaginative tactics. The France of youth and energy and adventure. The France with an average five years younger than their opponents. This was the France of Kylian Mbappe.