The cult of Lionel Messi
The Athletic FC Podcast
The Athletic
4.0 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 7 December 2022
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Athletic's Abi Paterson is in Doha, Qatar at the World Cup and has a few burning questions regarding a player who many consider as the greatest footballer of all time: Lionel Messi.
The forward has captained his Argentina side to the quarter-finals of the 2022 World Cup, which is widely thought to be his last ever World Cup tournament at 35 years of age.
With questions ranging from; is Lionel Messi the greatest? To is he better than fellow Argentine Diego Maradona, or his great rival Cristiano Ronaldo? And has his ambassadorial role with Saudi Arabia effected him?
Abi is joined by a host of guests including James Horncastle, Adam Crafton, Felipe Cardenas, Sam Lee, Michael Cox, and a number of other journalists and fans in Qatar.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Athletic. |
| 0:03.7 | Walking around Doha, one thing is pretty clear. |
| 0:07.0 | People appear to have come to this World Cup, not for Cristiana Ronaldo, not for |
| 0:11.4 | Kiliin Mbapé, not even for their own country. |
| 0:14.9 | They're here for Lionel Messi. |
| 0:17.2 | On this episode, Abbey Patterson has a special report on the cult of Messi in Qatar. |
| 0:23.6 | This is the Athletic Football Podcast. |
| 0:30.1 | A pelota for Leo, Messi Al-Alam! |
| 0:32.6 | Go! |
| 0:33.6 | Go! Goh! Everywhere you 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. |
| 0:52.3 | If you were playing a drinking game every time you saw one, |
| 0:55.4 | he'd be dead on day one. |
| 0:57.1 | In a piece for the Athletic, on my experience at the FIFA Fan Festival, |
| 1:00.5 | I read about the area effectively being like a cult |
| 1:02.9 | with the Argentinian as its god. |
| 1:05.9 | And he is the deity here. |
| 1:07.4 | There's no question of that. |
| 1:09.3 | But why Messi and why not Cristiano? Is it because Barcelona had a bigger |
| 1:13.5 | impact than Real Madrid? Is it down to his ties with Saudi Arabia? Or is it simply that Messi is actually |
| 1:21.1 | the goat, the greatest of all time? To drill down into the following behind the man himself, I'm going to be |
| 1:27.0 | talking with fans, |
| 1:27.9 | commentators and journalists for all around the world to get a view on the phenomenon that |
... |
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