Hard work has a marketing problem. Everybody praises it and almost nobody warns you that it stays invisible for a very long time.
You will do the early mornings before anyone notices. You will do the hundredth version of a thing nobody clapped for at the tenth.
Nothing about that stretch feels like progress while you are inside it.
It only reads as hard work later, once something finally moves, and half the room calls it luck anyway.
This morning Madrid woke up singing and Buenos Aires woke up quiet. Both of them earned it.
Spain were the better side across the month and deserved the final. Argentina were not embarrassed. They ran into a team playing the best football in the world.
As for Messi, one flat night does not audit a career.
919 career goals. 8 Ballon d'Ors, more than anyone who has ever played. 21 World Cup goals, a record. 418 assists, the most in the history of the sport. 672 goals for Barcelona alone, where he arrived at thirteen and stayed twenty one years.
Loyalty means staying long enough for the numbers to become unarguable.
Look at your parents.
Their time here on earth is moving faster than yours. This is the cold reality.
Focus so that they can enjoy the fruit of your labour.
May the Lord silence every negative voice in your head, bring peace to your heart, be your strength in your struggle and challenges, and comfort you on every side.