"Ultimately, I've done everything I can last season. It was my best season by far. I achieved a lot with the teams I was in."

The third-place decider is often described as the World Cup's most unwanted fixture. No player begins a tournament dreaming of featuring in it, yet one of the semifinal losers has to walk away with bronze while the other leaves empty-handed.

The Golden Boot remains one of the few major honours missing from Messi's glittering career.

From Lionel Messi rewriting history at 39 to Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland relentlessly closing in, while Vinícius Junior leads Brazil’s charge with flair and authority, the battle to finish as the tournament’s top scorer is fast becoming one of the World Cup’s defining subplots.