Ihave personally attended four World Cups. A number of football games in those World Cups across three continents. I’ve been to one prior World Cup final, but this one in 2026 felt extra special.
It felt like the end of an era and the start of an era at the same time. It literally did feel like, almost like, I can’t say a coronation or an abdication-but Messi, had he won with Argentina, would have cemented his place among the greatest to ever play the game. On the other hand, you had almost a V2 or an improved version of Messi who was ready to stop him. Who, in my opinion, is already the best, if not one of the top two players in the world, is a 19-year-old prodigy named Lamine Yamal. In fact, I would say he is essentially a taller version of Messi.
I stood right there in front of MetLife Stadium, understanding and appreciating how lucky I was to be able to go to this game. I grew up in Kolkata, and football was always the sport for us in Kolkata. However, we could never watch the games because they weren’t really on TV. I remember watching the ’78 World Cup-I was fortunate to be in England at the time. And I still remember Mario Kempes winning the final against Holland. And that was an incredible memory, but really where I fell in love with the World Cup was in 1982 when we were fortunate enough to watch, and wound up being late to school, when we finally watched the 1982 semi-finals on TV, on Doordarshan in Kolkata. And Germany beat France, and Italy beat Poland, before Italy beat Germany in the finals.
Fast forward, I attended the 1994 semi-finals wherein Brazil beat Sweden in the Rose Bowl. I went to Germany and watched the World Cup in 2006. But the biggest one before this was attending the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. I had read Pele’s autobiography as a kid, and I always wanted to go see a game at the Maracanã. Well, I happened to see Messi play, and lose that final 1-0 to Germany. It was an incredible performance, one I’d say is even better than this one, because in that particular World Cup, I feel he almost single-handedly took Argentina to the final when Di Maria and Agüero were hurt. And again, almost single-handedly won that tournament for Argentina.
The fact that he was still here, doing this 12 years later, was incredible. And so, as I sat in the stadium, I looked around and, unlike at regular World Cup games, I saw flags and jerseys from all kinds of countries. It literally was-yes, there were some Mexican jerseys, and there were a few odds and ends-but this really was just Spain and Argentina. You could kind of feel the finality of it all. We were there four hours ahead of game time, and the stadium had already started to fill up.
The sky was clear, the breeze was blowing, and it was about 27 degrees. So it was actually perfect football weather. We were worried about it a few days ago, when the smoke from the fires in Canada made the sky look terrible; the pollution levels were high, but rain the previous day had cleared it all up. So you couldn’t really ask for anything more for a World Cup final. Spain may have eventually won, deservingly so, having dominated the entire game; spare a thought for Argentina and the way they fought through the entire tournament.
I did see Yamal play in his quarter-final game in SoFi Stadium in LA when they beat Belgium. He’s incredible. And to think that we could, in our lifetime, see almost another Messi come up before the first Messi was gone is unbelievable. But then to see that connection between the two of them going back to when Yamal was born. To feel that he is left-footed just like Messi, he came through La Masia just like Messi, he plays on the right side of Barcelona just like Messi.
Unlike Messi, though, it is unbelievable to me that this kid at 19 could lead his country. And let’s be clear: he and Rodri are the two leaders of this Spanish team, but without Yamal, Spain would just be another really, really good possession team. And so it is amazing that a 19-year-old kid was able to lead his team to World Cup glory over possibly one of the greatest ever and the defending World Cup champion. That had never happened before.
Even Pele, when he won at 17, had incredible teammates around him, veterans like Vava and Garrincha and Didi. This is Yamal; he is the defending European champion, and he played a material part in that win at 17. So this very well may have been the passing of the guard and the coronation of someone who might be even a bigger superstar than Messi. Because Messi and Ronaldo did not win the equivalent of the European Championships. Ronaldo won the European Championships much later in life. Messi didn’t win his first Copa América-yes, he won an Olympic gold medal with Argentina-but he didn’t win the tournament until his 30s.
So if this kid wins everything except the Champions League by the time he’s 19, the sky is the limit. I think he could be-setting himself up to be the greatest, as long as he has longevity.
So from a fan perspective, from someone who loves the game, the ability to have been at this game, at the culmination of this World Cup which we’d been engrossed in for over a month, was amazing.
I had this summer circled for a long time. There were a bunch of life milestones, so I wanted to take the entire month off. Didn’t quite work out that way, but I saw about eight games. I saw a bunch of games in Los Angeles. I was here in this stadium for the Brazil-Norway game the previous week. And so to come back to New York and to be able to enjoy this final was, again, almost like a full circle for that boy from Kolkata wanting to go and see the World Cup, wanting to see the best players in the world, and now after all these years to actually be able to see not just the best of his generation but also the best potentially of the next generation, is something I think all football fans-of which obviously I’m just one-would look forward to.
So all of us there were incredibly fortunate. Everyone watching on TV should feel really fortunate because these things don’t happen too often. It was almost like destiny that this played out the way it did, and that the whole world got to sit back and enjoy this spectacle.
Looking back now, even a few hours after the final whistle, I can still feel the excitement that had been building all afternoon. It was worth every second.