Still remember sitting on our rug in the living room back home in Enugu, 2005, holding back tears because Argentina had just scored a penalty Messi had won, I swore so many times at that short man... damn La Pulga, as far as I was concerned you were just a short diving cheat and Mikel Obi was better than you, and to add insult to injury he absolutely destroyed my beloved Arsenal not too long after that in UCL, although at this point I still didn't like him but I couldn't deny the talent. Fast forward 2 decades later and he's about to play his final game for Argentina as the bonafide GOAT.

And to think that I preferred Ronaldo. One of the goats too, no argument from me. Don't get it twisted, Henry was and still is my goat, for obvious reasons, but for years between those two, Ronaldo was my guy and Messi was just the short man I kept swearing at. Then Ronaldo moved to Real Madrid and joined him in La Liga, and funny enough, that's what ruined it for me. Every Clásico I was tuning in to watch my guy, and every Clásico I found myself watching the other guy more.

Let me be honest about how that happened, because nobody wakes up one day and decides to love the man who ruined their childhood. It crept up on me. April 2010, four goals at the Camp Nou, all four his, all of them against my club. I wanted to be angry. I just couldn't, you can't be angry at something that good, it's like being angry at the weather. That night I stopped calling him a cheat, and I started saying "okay, this one is different."

After that I went digging through old clips just to understand what I'd been missing, and that's where I found the Getafe goal. 2007, he's 19, the commentator screaming "encara Messi, encara Messi" while the whole world heard "Ankara" (nothing to do with Turkey, by the way). He picks up the ball and just walks through the entire team like they're cones. Then 2015, Bayern, and Boateng. Boateng! A World Cup winner, one of the best defenders on earth, and Messi shifts his weight and the man is on the floor. Then he chips Neuer, the other world champion, over him like it was nothing. I couldn't believe what my eyes was seeing. I've watched that Boateng clip more times than I'll ever admit.

Then came the years of arguing. Ronaldo people, Messi people, the same debate in every group chat. And then the part that got me. The man lost a World Cup final in 2014, got the Copa in 2021, the Finalissima, then Qatar in 2022, the one thing everybody said he'd never have. I was glad for him. Me, the same person from 2005? Growth is quite something.

And then this year, at 39 years old, with nothing left to prove to anybody, he went back to the biggest stage in the world and lost the final to Spain, 1-0. I felt that one in my chest, and I'm not ashamed to say it. Twenty-one years ago I would've thrown a party. This time I wanted to hug him, even though I was happy for Spain.

On August 31 he told the world he was done with Argentina. Tonight, at the Monumental in Buenos Aires, 85,000 people will watch him play cap number 208, with the whole 2022 squad and their families sitting there to say goodbye. And who's standing across from him? Benin. A West African team, our neighbours, next door to Nigeria. In 2005 it was Nigeria in the way of the little man from Rosario, and in 2026 it's the people next door. Life dey go in circles, I swear.

Their goalkeeper said he never imagined he'd face the man he'd watched on TV his whole life, in his last game. That's it, that's the whole story of Messi. Everybody, from the little boy in West Africa to the keeper standing in front of him, grew up watching the same man.

Here's what I think makes a GOAT, and it isn't the trophies. It's that he made the people who hated him learn his name, learn his left foot, and finally say sorry. I'm the proof. If you'd told that kid on the living room rug that one day he'd write a love letter to La Pulga, he'd have called you a liar and gone back to swearing.

Whatever happens tonight, goal or no goal, it doesn't change anything. It's already done. Twenty-one years, and he made one stubborn Arsenal fan from Enugu change his mind.

Thank you, Messi. I was wrong. (I'm still not forgiving the four goals.)