DOHA, Qatar — The Lionel Messi-Diego Maradona debate has never been all that rational. It has reappeared ahead of Sunday’s 🍏 2024 World Cup final, with Messi one step away from clearing the hurdle that Maradona memorably did in 1986. And 🍏 if the debate were a rational one, the current framing would be this: Messi could settle it once and for 🍏 all with a win over France, because, for now, for at least one more day, a World Cup title is 🍏 the lone accolade that Maradona had and Messi still doesn’t.

In every single other category, the comparisons are borderline absurd. Messi 🍏 could finish his career with three times as many goals as Maradona and four times as many trophies. Some of 🍏 those gulfs are products of era and opportunity, but Messi has essentially replicated Maradona’s fleeting peak and sustained it over 🍏 15 stunning years. He is peerless.

Yet there are fans, especially older Argentines, who will argue that Messi won’t — and 🍏 can’t — ever match their original soccer God.

Because the debate has always been influenced by who Maradona was and who 🍏 Messi is, and what they represent, not solely by what they’ve done.

Maradona was a son of the barrios, a kid 🍏 from Argentina’s suffocating slums who outran poverty toward greatness. He was flawed, terribly flawed, and struggled with a drug addiction 🍏 that ultimately derailed his career — but millions of Argentines identified with the struggle. When he won it, temporarily, and 🍏 lifted his countrymen with him to World Cup glory, they deified him.