Lionel Messi wins tournament’s Golden Ball but falls short during World Cup final

THIS tournament was billed as Lionel Messi’s stage.

Indeed, he won the Golden Ball for player of the competition.
But he will leave with regrets - he botched his ‘Maradona moment’, a 47th minute chance that he has buried hundreds of times before, that will long haunt him.
Messi will go down as one of football’s greats. But in Argentina, where they revere Diego Maradona and the Pope with divine affection, he remains a mere World Cup mortal.
If this World Cup final was Messi’s stage, the No.10, skipper and talisman, 27, failed to fulfil top billing, and Germany, the perfect team, prevailed.