This is Planet Money from NPR.

There is this incredible video, this grainy video from the 1990s.

It's a soccer match in Argentina.

And even though this has got proper sports announcer, what we're seeing is a patchy field surrounded

by concrete walls with peeling paint and the players here, they are a bunch of children.

We see this tiny seven year old get the ball and then just like weave through almost

an entire team of bigger players.

Messi goal as in Leonel Messi who is now 35 years old and arguably the greatest soccer

player on the planet.

Messi is currently trying to help Argentina win the World Cup, which they have not won since

before Messi was even alive.

And I felt like I had heard all about Messi and all about his soccer journey until I heard

it all reframed as an economic story in a new podcast series called The Last Cup.

Because when Leonel Messi was born, Argentina's economy was headed for disaster.

Unemployment would surge, inflation would head towards not 8%, not 11%, 2600%.

And as bad as that was, things would get even worse into the late 90s when Messi was

10-11-12 years old.

A group of our NPR colleagues, along with Futuro Studios, have been telling an incredible

story about this period of time in Argentina.

It is this street level version of what it was like to live through all of this as a kid,

you know, like aware, but also not entirely aware.

And it follows two very different people as they leave Argentina.

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