To Argentina haters: Calling it "scripted" won’t change reality!

For most of the year, they are nowhere to be found. No league discussions. No tactical debates. No concerns about anything. Then Argentina play and suddenly, they act like they have spent the last decade inside a VAR room. Every tackle is examined. Every whistle is questioned. Every replay is paused.

And yet, the verdicts are quite the same: A foul on Messi is protection. Penalties are gifted. Referees have been bought. The tournament is scripted.

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These are often the same people who could not name three players of any team. They cannot explain the offside rule on a Tuesday. But once Messi touches the ball, they become referees, experts and part-time investigators of football corruption.

At 7 AM in the morning, the screen glows before the faces of dedicated haters. Their team got knocked out weeks ago. Hate watch is their new cardio. They are sweating and praying for an Argentina defensive error.

Their tournament is not over. It has simply entered a new phase.

Supporting a football team requires commitment. Once, they were switching shirts between Brazil and Portugal. Now they are devoted supporters of whoever happens to be playing Argentina next. If the opponent is a country they have never discussed before, no problem.

One defeat is all it takes to start supporting a completely new team. Their teams are gone, but these fans remain fully committed to the competition. Not to win it, of course. Just to make sure Argentina do not. And somehow, after changing teams three times in one week, they still accuse Argentina fans of being obsessed.

They produce slow-mo clips of every incident. They demand accountability from referees while ignoring the years their teams got the same favours. When Argentina win, it’s “scripted”. When someone else benefits from a dubious call, it’s “Part of the game. Referees make mistakes.”

Of course, referees can make mistakes. They are human. And they have to explain their decisions later. But if your outrage only arrives in this scenario, perhaps justice is not really the issue.

Perhaps the issue is Argentina. And the conspiracy theory level? Entertaining.

The tournament was perfectly enjoyable when Messi was losing.

Very competitive. Very fair. Beautiful, even. For years, rival fans shouted that he could never do it for Argentina.

Football remained completely legitimate for decades, only to collapse into corruption at the exact moment Messi completed the one thing people had spent years mocking him for not having. Now, the whole thing becomes suspicious. The World Cup has plots, and it runs by invisible cheque books.

Messi has won everything there is to win. Greatness makes people uncomfortable. You can call it scripted if that helps you sleep. So, when rival fans scream about these conspiracies, remember what they really fear: he’s still relevant. Still decisive.

That is the level.