In the race between athlete and time, there is only ever one winner.

Messi has pushed that defeat date back for a long, long time now. But I think maybe two things hastened it a little bit.

One is the recent death of his father and the other is – although it was 1-0 on the scoresheet – the World Cup final defeat by Spain. The distance between the two sides was so, so large.

You could see Messi, as he looked around the stadium almost thinking, “I don’t think I can go through this again”.

What memories he has given us. This little man has been a part of my life for 21 and a half years – but it had to end some time and that day is today.

Could Messi move back to Newell’s Old Boys to finish his career? I think there are two problems there.

One is moving his family back to the city of Rosario. It is a little bit provincial, and there are problems with violence there. True, his old mate Angel di Maria has done it with Rosario Central without too many problems. But I think Messi would worry about taking his family back into a goldfish bowl.

The other is that the level of football might not attract him quite so much. It could happen for just a few games, as a kind of romantic end to his career. He has talked about it plenty of times in the past. But I imagine Inter Miami might be the end.

Who knows? He will stop playing when he feels like it. If he doesn’t feel like going on until the end of 2028, he could knock it on the head before then.

We will have to see. Inter Miami fans are the lucky ones. They will get the last drops of this little man’s genius.