Delirious De-javu: The three stars shine again

The World Cup rarely offers such neat symmetry. This almost feels scripted. And if it is, I am loving it. Last week, Messi, Mbappe and Haaland scored a total of seven goals within hours of each other. This time they scored a total of six, each bagging a brace.

The race for the golden boot, in my lifetime, has been quite a slow-burning affair. Harry Kane’s group stage heroics made it a foregone conclusion in 2018, and while there was often stiff competition in the race for the golden boot in recent World Cups, the tally remained moderate. There was no chance of building a reason-defying expectation.

The golden boot race did end up being stellar in the closing stages of the Qatar World Cup, but never have I seen three of international football’s best forwards score 5, 4, and 4 goals after the first two rounds of matches in a World Cup. The extended format means there is a chance of playing six more games. I am cheering on at the golden-boot race with enrapt anticipation and sweet delight.

The playful certainty in Messi’s goals comes paired with their statistical seriousness. His first goal of this game was his seventeenth in the FIFA World Cup. He ended the match with 18. Overtaking Miroslav Klose, Messi sits atop the illustrious list of prolific World Cup goal-getters. It’s a throne he will have to concede sooner or later to a certain Kylian Mbappe, who seems perfectly poised to create a new record of World Cup goals of truly epic proportions. But Messi’s short reign will be cherished. Neither Pele, nor Maradona, the other two transcendent number tens of the World Cup history, have ever held this distinction.

In a way, it looks so fitting that Messi is the World Cup’s all-time greatest goal-scorer, but at the same time, I would have laughed out loud if someone foretold this to me on the eve of the knockouts or even on the eve of the final of the last World Cup. Messi, who will turn 39 in two days’ time, has scored 7 goals in his last three World Cup matches and 10 in the last six.

Mbappe, in a game where the half-time lasted more than a couple of hours owing to heavy downpour and thunderstorm, scored his 15th and 16th FIFA World Cup goals to draw level with Klose. Like Messi, he has scored 7 goals in his last three World Cup games.

Haaland, whose debut World Cup keeps getting better and better, grabbed a second consecutive brace. Both Mbappe and Haaland will have a chance to play and outscore each other in their group finale.

Haaland can often be peripheral and rather clumsy on some days. But the blanket assertion that his play is not visually compelling seems baffling to me. I find a gigantic blob of power, will, and momentum harrying defences, running channels and shouting encouragement eminently watchable, especially if there are bonus pleasures like seeing his theatrical expressions of disappointment and pompous self-assurance in celebrations.

Haaland’s first goal saw him run on to a pass to finish with a single lethal touch. Letting the pass run to him with a misjudged interception had been a huge mistake, but Haaland still had a lot to do.

The second Haaland goal was all the more entertaining because he had been anticipating a cross, and when it came, he failed to deal with it properly; he looked visibly pained and disheartened. But within a few seconds, a second cross from the other side of the pitch came to him. He leapt at the chance, literally and almost kung-fu kicked the ball towards the goal. The shot, slightly looping, went in off the crossbar.  Haaland embarked on a casual performative stroll before being embraced by two of his teammates. Senegal had often looked dangerous in attack, but Norway rightfully bagged 3 points to seal their awaited World Cup knockout qualification.

In the other group game, it was a story of utter French dominance. Dembele had seemed peripheral to most of France’s attacking play at the first game, but against Iran, he delivered superbly. In what was arguably Dembele’s greatest World Cup performance yet,  Mbappe’s goals would take away most of the headlines. The prospect of seeing a quartet like Barcola, Dembele, Olise and Mbappe perform together with such brilliant balance and imagination will leave many football fans drooling. Iraq could not muster much competition.

Mbappe’s second goal was a straightforward one. He rolled into an effectively empty net from close range, having received a pass from Dembele after one of Iraq’s goal-kick routines went horribly wrong. His first was a piece of majesty. Mbappe had initiated the attacking move, and it was he who finished it from just outside the box, arrowing the ball towards the top corner at the far side. The keeper could reach it, barely, but could not stop it from going in. Mbappe’s hundredth French cap will forever be memorable.

Argentina haven’t had the easiest of games against Austria. Despite the latter’s toothless attack, Argentina were being made to sweat for long stretches of the match. As an adaptable team, Argentina began playing a style of football that they have often masterfully demonstrated in the last two Copa America campaigns.

Messi, for most of the match, seemed utterly fallible. Missed penalty aside, he constantly ceded position, often in quite dangerous areas. In the last game, the midfield was supplementing Messi, but against Austria, it had to keep compensating for him. But in two pivotal moments, like our favourite comic-book heroes, he seemed absolutely infallible. He seemed like a ruler of destiny.

Like Mbappe, Messi had initiated the move that he finished at the end for his first goal. Thiago Almada, in a deft bit of trickery, let the ball roll between his legs, sensing Messi’s fabled ghostly late run into the box. And Messi delivered. His one-touch lash gloriously found the bottom corner.

Messi’s second was all the more fascinating. Just like the first goal, it was he who had initiated the move. Just like the first goal, the fans will be served with the ever-tantalising view of a football passing between someone’s legs in a crucial moment. Messi’s first shot came after he skilfully controlled a complicated pass from Paredes, but it was blocked. It seemed pre-ordained that Messi himself would reach the rebound. This time, from a tighter angle but closer to the goal, Messi had the last laugh amidst a crowd of opposition defenders. Uncannily perfect, the shot was not blemished by a hint of deflecting touch. Passing cleanly through the eye of the needle, Messi’s shot went between the legs of one defender and slightly past the legs of the next to stir up the net and the world.

Three braces for three players could easily have gotten better. All three found themselves at the end of quite a few good chances. And that’s more exciting. The misses, as much as the goals, accentuate the spectacle of what is shaping up to be a golden-boot race for the ages.