Records are made to be broken one day, and so on. Generational shifts are part of the natural cycle of life, and so on. One cannot be and have been, and so on. Age is just a number: absolute nonsense regularly contradicted by suddenly less supple joints, a skeleton now stiffer, gestures progressively less lively. Novak Djokovic was indeed 39 years old, and especially 14 years older than Jannik Sinner, in the final of last Wimbledon. And yet, by some mechanism I cannot explain, I found myself feeling empathy for an "old man" who is 17 years younger than me. The foolish hope that "the last best chance" would finally be the right one.
Throughout this World Cup that is ending, without having seen a single match, I wanted to talk about football without talking about football. And just minutes before the final kickoff, whose outcome will be known well beyond "the hour we go to press," here I am once again preferring a final consecration for a 39-year-old Lionel Messi rather than wishing for the emergence of a new generation, in this case a 19-year-old Lamine Yamal who still has her whole life ahead. A characteristic symptom when nostalgia is more suggestive than the future.
Besides Messi, other sympathetic "old-timers" were playing their last World Cup: Luka Modric (41), Manuel Neuer (40), Josimar Dias Vozinha (40), Harry Kane (33). And many of them will never be crowned again. Adios, friends.
Slower, lower, weaker. By Djokovic's own admission, half a second behind on every shot: age may be just a number, but the heart truly has wrinkles.