During the World Youth Days (WYD) organized in Krakow, Poland in 2016, a young person questioned Pope Francis. Who is, according to him, the best football player of all time: the Argentinian Diego Maradona or the Brazilian Pelé? Faced with this difficult choice, François, whose passion for football is well known, responded with a pirouette: “For me, it’s Messi! »
There is no doubt that for the final of the World Cup in Qatar, opposing the French team to that of Argentina, his native country, on Sunday December 18, the pope, who continues to regularly read the specialized press on football, would see looking forward to the victory of Lionel Messi’s teammates. Pope Francis is, with the sevenfold Golden Ball, the most famous Argentinian in the world. The two men have also met at least once, in the Vatican, on the occasion of a friendly match between Italy and Argentina in Rome in 2013, in honor of the pope.
Messi, “a god with the ball on the pitch”
A great supporter of San Lorenzo, a football club in a popular suburb of Buenos Aires – whose results he follows through a Swiss guard, he explained in the Argentine press in 2015 – François has already mentioned the captain and Argentine number 10. Asked about Lionel Messi and his admirers who sometimes compare him to a God, in 2019 by the Spanish channel La Sexta, the pope had tempered. « These are expressions of the people. He’s a god with the ball in the field, he explained. These are popular ways to express yourself. It’s nice to see how he plays. But it’s not God. »
The pope’s passion for football earned him many shirts from his visitors, including many teams that he regularly hosts at the Vatican. When he came in October 2021, Jean Castex, the Prime Minister at the time, offered a signed Paris SG jersey, bearing the name of Lionel Messi, one of the best players of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
If successful against the Blues, the Albiceleste – nickname of the Argentine selection – would win a third World Cup after 1978 and 1986. In a book published in French in December, A time to change (Flammarion), the Pope also alludes to that day in June 1986 when Argentina won a second star, in the final against West Germany.
Tribute to Diego Maradona
Father Jorge Mario Bergoglio was then living in Germany, where he was working on his theology thesis: “I didn’t want to see the game and I only knew we had won the next day when I read the newspaper. Nobody in my German class talked about it, but when a young Japanese girl wrote “Vive l’Argentina” on the board, the others laughed. The professor came in, said delete it and the subject was closed. » “It was the loneliness of a victory alone, because there was no one to share it (…) », he says again.
Having become pope, Francis twice met another “idol” in Argentina, the former footballer Diego Maradona. Only hours after his death, he had paid tribute to him in a message published by the Vatican: “The Pope looks back with affection on the occasions of meeting in recent years, and remembers him in prayer, as he did in recent days when he learned of his state of health. »
Difficult to know if the pope, who will be 86 the day before the final, will follow the match. Contrary to what the film shows The Two Popes, broadcast on Netflix, where in an unlikely scene, Benedict XVI and Cardinal Bergoglio watch the World Cup final between their two countries, Germany and Argentina, Pope Francis assures us that he never watches television. However, we can assume that he will keep abreast of the result when he gets up on Monday, December 19. In an interview with the Italian television channel Channel 5excerpts of which were made public on Sunday December 18, he invited the winners to the“humility” and called on French and Argentinian players to “to shake hands” after the final.
