Messi must be forced into retirement for upsetting one ‘seduced’ man in particular

In partnership with

Football365

·21 de julho de 2026

Messi must be forced into retirement for upsetting one ‘seduced’ man in particular

Lionel Messi must retire unless he apologises for Argentina making that the 13th-best World Cup final Jeff Powell has attended.

And the BBC are doing the lord’s work. If anything, we’d quite like our transfer nonsense back please.

Vídeos OneFootball

Argie bargy

The unanimous agreement that Argentina are awfully nasty dark art merchants who should be roundly laughed at forever and ever has been refreshing. But it turns out their unforgivable nefariousness runs even deeper.

The Sun website has laid into the ‘utterly disgraceful’ and ‘totally disgusting’ World Cup finalists, noting the ‘crimes against football’ they have perpetrated this summer. Among them, right towards the end but there all the same, is…

‘Not a single player took any accountability by speaking to the media or walking through the mandatory mixed zone as required by Fifa.’

The c****. Ban them all for life.

Gore draw

‘Man Utd award-winner could be axed as Ratcliffe enforces brutal rule’ is an intriguing headline from The Sun website.

The ‘Man Utd award-winner’ is fairly obviously Rotherham award-winner Dan Gore, the League One (now Two) club’s 2025/26 Player of the Year.

And what exactly is this ‘brutal rule’ that Sir Jim is about to insist upon?

‘Minority owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe has previously complained about United’s inability to generate significant funds through the sale of academy players. ‘Though determined to impress this summer, breaking into the first team will be tough given the fierce competition for midfield spots among young players.’

That’s…not a rule. Not sure what it is really. But it’s about as much a ‘rule’ as Gore is a ‘Man Utd award-winner’.

Crock of shirt

Elsewhere, we have dreadful news for the Blowtorching Your Own Clothes community, courtesy of some vital BBC investigative journalism.

Why firefighters are warning against buying fake football shirts ⚠️🔥
– terça-feira, 21 de julho de 2026

Good to see a national broadcaster lobbying for the right of vast sportswear companies to charge absurd amounts of money for kits, apparently on the basis that they take slightly longer to melt. On which note…

‘Clearly the cost of genuine replica kits is a contributing factor behind the demand for cheap copies. ‘We found several websites where counterfeit shirts were being sold for as little as £12. ‘It can be tempting for parents to turn to an affordable alternative when it can cost up to seven times more for the real thing, with some Premier League official strips starting from £85.’

It is not ‘a contributing factor’. It is the solitary, overriding reason people might put themselves at risk of their £12 counterfeit shirt being incinerated in a concerted blowtorch attack, rather than holding firm like the £85 real thing which will still eventually disintegrate if the wearer stands still while being set ablaze.

Shame there isn’t a counterfeit TV licence we can blast into the sea along with the real thing to test their structural integrity.

Sorry seems to be the hardest word

As if things aren’t difficult enough for Lionel Messi right now, the Daily Mail has sent Jeff Powell to really rub it in.

This is pure, unadulterated Rowley Birkin QC, whose other headlines on Tuesday morning include:

‘JEFF POWELL MBE’S 13 WORLD CUP FINALS: Bobby Moore took me to his favourite West End pub after England’s 1966 win – but where does Argentina’s thug-fest rank?’

…and…

‘The day Kevin Keegan hurtled down the autobahn at 100mph to get me to the airport on time – after our lunch of beefburgers and steins of pilsner to mark his move to Hamburg, writes JEFF POWELL’

…because his role now appears to be ‘things were better in the old days when my job was to go drinking with the stars’. Won’t Jude Bellingham please take him for a pint soon?

Anyway, here’s Powell sticking it to the great one:

‘From Messi there has not been one syllable of apology for the thuggery which ruined the principal showpiece for the game which has enriched him beyond Croesus. Not one word of regret for his disgruntled brethren instigating the brawl which disgraced their hour of defeat. No hint of recognition for reducing this nasty, tedious game to the bottom of the list of the 13 World Cup finals which have come under my scrutiny.’

That does indeed appear to be Powell demanding Messi apologise on behalf of his Argentina team-mates for making this the worst World Cup final he specifically has attended/scrutinised. And no matter which way you cut it, that’s incredible.

And that’s not all…

‘To think, furthermore, that I was once seduced by his natural-born skills into elevating Messi to third in my ranking of the best in the anthology of football. We all make mistakes.’

Messi, after a World Cup in which he scored eight goals, becoming the tournament’s all time top scorer, and assisted a further four more to finish as a runner-up, has been relegated to the sixth-best player in history now because Enzo Fernandez and Leandro Paredes are d*ckheads.

It might even be that Messi can only get back above your Di Stefanos, your Cruyffs and the Garrinchas of this world if he has a few lagers with old Rowley, who adds:

‘Those revised rankings accompany this verdict on FIFA’s elongated tournament of mixed blessings. Along with little Leo clinging on to a place in my forever best world Xl. Just about. Although he was on the brink of deletion at the end of Sunday’s final to which his only contribution was to lob a hopeful cross-cum-shot onto the roof of the Spanish goal netting.’

This is Powell’s world and we are all just living in it.

It’s gonna take a lot to drag me away from you

Powell is, mercifully, not quite done:

‘Pele had predicted the time was fast approaching when an African team would win the World Cup. This is coming closer and closer as more and more talents from the continent garner experience in the major European leagues. The greatest one’s forecast is not beyond realisation in 2030.’

Pele predicted in the 1970s that an African team would win the World Cup by the year 2000. Not sure you can say it ‘is coming closer and closer’ on the basis of a tournament in which Morocco were the only non-European quarter-finalists, and were handled quite comfortably a France side which finished fourth.