Rubén Uría moved by Messi's emotional Argentina farewell

Messi's farewell with Argentina leads Rubén Uría to an inevitable comparison with the other great name of his generation: for him, Messi has been better on the pitch and better still off it.

After watching Leo Messi's farewell with the Argentina national team, Rubén Uría admits he does not know what to say about a player who, in his own words, changed his life. He highlights what a good guy Messi is, how humble he is, and how beautiful his send-off has been.

Then comes the comparison that, he says, was inevitable: the way Messi is leaving and the way "the other one" is leaving, the one who has spent his whole life saying me, me and me, and boasting about being the best. Uría recalls the years when plenty of people on television shows argued that Messi was little more than a bluff, that he was finished and that the other one was the real deal. His answer is emphatic: the other one would love to have achieved half of what Messi has been, and not just on the pitch. On the pitch, Messi has been better; off it, better still.

Uría is moved to see an entire country at the feet of its captain and cannot help remembering those in Argentina who called him a 'pecho frío', someone who went missing when it mattered. He concludes that the farewell Messi has had is the one any football great deserves.