Football fans were treated to what was arguably the greatest World Cup final ever, as Lionel Messi’s Argentina held off Kylian Mbappe and the rest of the French team to win the match on penalties. It was Argentina’s third World Cup win and their first since Diego Maradona led the team to glory in 1986. The win likely also put to rest any debate over whether Messi or Maradona is the better player. It was always Messi, but now he has that last piece of silverware in his trophy cabinet to prove it. In fact, there is now little doubt that the diminutive Argentina striker can officially be considered the greatest of all time, exceeding even Brazil legend Pele because of the length of time he has been able to dominate the game. But it was Messi’s PSG teammate Mbappe who put in a performance for the ages, scoring a hat-trick — only the second-ever in a final — to keep France in the game, despite subpar performances from the rest of Les Bleus. His heroics did earn him the Golden Boot for the tournament.
Closer to home, Pakistan’s struggles in the world’s most popular sport have reached epic proportions. We are currently ranked 194th in the world, behind several teams that professional cartographers may struggle to locate on a map, and the Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) is making a mockery of itself by claiming it is “not long before our national team qualifies” for a World Cup, even though we are the only Asian Football Confederation team to have never won a world cup qualifier. Let us try for that first win before getting ahead of ourselves. Like Morocco and other strong teams from the developing world, we also need to do more to convince overseas Pakistani players to play for the national team as a quick fix while upgrading the local set-up. Right now, the PFF is actually suspended from international football because of — who would have thought — an attempted coup. The PFF desperately needs to be handed over to professionals who care about the game, rather than the junkets and other perks of sports management.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 20th, 2022.
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