Messi and the Fidelity to What Keeps Him Alive

Some things are not just a profession or a skill: they are a way of being in the world and of giving meaning to one's own life.

There are people who seem to keep doing what they do even when the world has already started writing their ending. Not because they can escape time, nor because the body has no limits, but because in what they do there is something beyond performance, recognition, or habit. There is a way of being alive.

At 38 years old and with more than two decades in the national team, Messi scores three goals in Argentina's first match of the 2026 World Cup against Algeria when many had already expected to see him closer to the end than to the surprise. But what's interesting is not only the goals, nor the record, nor the inevitable debate about his place in history. What's interesting appears after the match, when he's asked about the statistics and his answer shifts the focus toward something simpler: "it's what I'm passionate about and what I've loved doing since I was a kid," he said. To keep enjoying being on the pitch.

I'm not particularly into football. I watch it closely every four years. But there are moments that reach even those of us who don't fully belong to that world. Because what appears there is not only an extraordinary athlete, but someone who from a young age did whatever was necessary to stay close to what he loved doing. An entire life following football: Rosario, Barcelona, Paris, Miami. Someone who in 2016, unable to bear the criticism, almost walked away from the national team. Someone who has played six World Cups.

It's common for people to compare, measure, announce declines and anticipate endings. But seeing someone keep doing what they do has a different kind of force. Not because the records, the goals, or the historical dimension don't matter, but because perhaps what matters most lies somewhere else: in the relationship someone keeps with what they love doing.

That's why it interests me: because there's a question that runs through me too. What do we do with what we love. In my case, I'm clearer about it than ever: music and journalism are not decorations in my life, nor activities I can keep adding on the side while doing anything else. They are part of what sustains me. They are, in some way, my way of staying close to what keeps me alive.

For a long time I accepted being close to what I loved while other things occupied the center. An in-the-meantime that kept stretching. But at some point a question appears that can no longer be ignored: what's the point of organizing a life — what's the point of anything — if what sustains it is always postponed.

There are activities with an obvious limit, and professional football is one of them. But when something is truly central to a person, they try to hold onto it for as long as possible, because it is where they draw meaning from.

Maybe it's not about being exceptional, or outlasting everyone else, or proving something to anyone. Maybe it's about something quieter and harder: not abandoning what sustains you. Being able to practice it day by day, in concrete terms. Staying close to what truly moves you. Not as a goal, but as the way one chooses to live.