The Athletic.

Walking around Doha, one thing is pretty clear.

People appear to have come to this World Cup, not for Christina Rinaldo, not for Killian and Bape, not even for their own country. They're here for

Leonel Messy. On this episode, Abby Patterson has a special report on the cult of Messy in Qatar. This is the Athletic Football Podcast. And I'm not going to go. Everywhere you're go here in Qatar you're likely to run into someone somewhere

wearing a blue and white striped shirt with messy and the number 10 emblazoned

on the back of it.

If you were playing a drinking game every time you saw one,

you'd be dead on day one.

In a piece for the athletic on my experience at the FIFA fan festival,

I wrote about the area effectively being like a cult with the Argentinian as its God.

And he is the deity here, there's no question of that. But why messy and why not

Christiano? Is it because Barcelona had a bigger impact than

rail Madrid? Is it down to his ties with Saudi Arabia? Or is it simply that

messy is actually the goat, the greatest of all time.

To drill down into the following behind the man himself,

I'm going to be talking with fans, commentators and journalists

for all around the world to get a view on the phenomenon that is Leonore messy.

To give thanks that he is one of them.

How often have they said that prayer of thanks?

How often have we seen those bright wide eyes?

How often have we seen in the faces of opponents

the dismay that he should come at Scarthen.

...