Hey, welcome back.
I’ve been reflecting on legacy — “a tangible or intangible thing handed down by a predecessor; a long-lasting effect of an event or process” (OED) — and this idea that “what we do in life echoes in eternity.” (H/T Maximus Decimus Meridius via Ridley Scott)
We live in an age plagued by the endless opinions of others, and we’ve allowed those opinions to creep into how we measure our time here on Earth.
But we have the power to tune out the voices — whether whispered nearby or shouted from afar — and write our own endings.
The journeys of Lionel Messi and Ryan Day aren’t just stories of success — they’re testaments to this truth.
Let these stories be your permission slip to forge ahead on your terms. Your legacy isn't a monument to others' expectations – it's your own private masterpiece.
"When writing the story of your life, don't let anyone else hold the pen." - Jack Kerouac
The pen is yours. Always has been.
In your corner,
The Legend:
Before that night in New Jersey, Lionel Messi had already ascended to football's pantheon.
Four Champions League titles, five Ballon d'Or awards, and an archive of impossible moments had secured his place among the immortals.
Yet in Argentina, a peculiar emptiness lingered.
The boy from Rosario who left at thirteen to chase his dreams in Barcelona carried his nation's hopes like Atlas bore the heavens. In a country where fútbol pulses through the national consciousness, the weight grew heavier with each near-miss – two Copa América finals and a World Cup final lost in three devastating years.
Each defeat carved deeper into the space between legend and legacy.
The Moment:
MetLife Stadium, June 26, 2016.
The Copa América Centenario final between Argentina and Chile had stretched beyond 120 minutes, beyond human endurance, into the cruel binary of penalties.
When Messi stepped forward for Argentina's first attempt, the weight of 23 years without a major trophy hung heavy in the Meadowlands air. His run-up was deliberate, almost hesitant—a stark contrast to his usual balletic grace.
The ball left his foot like a prayer seeking an answer, but found only the infinite night sky, sailing over the crossbar into darkness that seemed to swallow both the shot and the dreams it carried.
Argentina would never lead in the penalty shootout.
Messi's miss sealed their fate early, and the long wait for glory stretched on as they would fall 4-2, hopes fading into the night.
The Words:
"For me, the national team is over. I’ve done all I can. It hurts to not be a champion."
At 29, the world's greatest player walked away from international football.
Within hours, the announcement convulsed the football world. Argentina's president, Mauricio Macri, publicly pleaded for his return. #DontGoLeo trended globally. Thousands gathered in the streets of Buenos Aires, holding signs begging their captain to reconsider.
Messi’s words had fallen like stones in a well, each one echoing with the finality of a door closing.
The Truth:
The miss itself lasted less than a second — a simple physics problem of force and trajectory gone awry.
But its meaning stretched across decades, across generations.
In that singular penalty lay the infinite space between what we dream and what we accomplish.
The truth was that Messi's miss humanized him in a way that all his superhuman feats never could.
The Echo:
The reverberations were immediate and global.
A world that had long admired Messi's perfection now faced his vulnerability. His retirement announcement — which was later rescinded — sparked a wave of national mourning in Argentina, with fans and media alike struggling to accept the possibility of losing their hero.
This collective grief weighed heavily on Messi, compelling him to confront the crushing expectations that had loomed over him for years. In that moment, sport transcended its usual boundaries, becoming a deeper question of identity, belonging, and the personal demons lurking beneath his greatness.
The impact rippled far beyond the stadium and throughout the history of the beautiful game, joining the ranks of other iconic, heartbreaking misses — like Roberto Baggio in 1994 and David Beckham in 2004.
For Messi, the miss crystallized into a crisis point — a violent collision between expectation and reality. The penalty kick had become a vessel for something far heavier: the weight of a nation's dreams, and the burden of being anointed savior before having the chance to prove worthy of the crown.
The Lesson:
The deepest truth wasn't found in the arc of the penalty, but in Messi's return.
After the miss, after the retirement, after the national outpouring of grief, he chose to face the very ghosts that had driven him away.
His comeback revealed something profound about greatness — it’s not a string of endless perfection, but knowing that if you want to get where you're trying to go, you have to come back again and again and again.
In this light, the miss became a pivotal moment, not a failure.
Messi’s return to the national team signified a deeper understanding: perfection was never the true measure of belonging.
By donning the Albiceleste once more, he acknowledged a harder truth — that we must face our ghosts head-on, because we’re the only ones capable of exorcising them.
The legacy of that night in New Jersey lives not in the ball that sailed over the crossbar, but in the courage to step up to the spot again.
The Deep Dive:
Ryan Day transformed a season of doubt into a masterpiece for the ages. Just weeks after facing such intense backlash that his family needed security protection following Ohio State's (fourth consecutive) Michigan loss, Day orchestrated the most remarkable championship run in college football history—defeating an unprecedented number of top-5 teams en route to the title.
The poetry of him hoisting the trophy on January 20th, exactly 36 years after losing his father, added another layer to a story that transcends sports.
But what defines Day's brilliance isn't just the hardware or his nation-leading 87.5% win rate—it's how he evolved in real-time, recalibrating his approach and protecting his team from outside noise before delivering the ultimate mic-drop moment: a gutsy deep shot to freshman Jeremiah Smith that sealed Ohio State's first championship in a decade and cemented his place among the coaching elite.
To Have Been the One That Opened the Flood Gates - Naomi Girma
To Be the Hero of Their Next Acts - Mark Andrews + Dalton Kincaid
Ravens TE Mark Andrews addresses mistakes in playoff loss to Bills: 'I’m absolutely gutted' (Yahoo! Sports)
To Get Their WNBA Franchise Because (Among Other Things) That Name is So Sick - The City of Nashville
Nashville bids for WNBA team, would honor Pat Summitt with name (The Tennessean)
Bonus Content: More sick names (and logos!) for women’s sports teams
I won't look too far ahead
It's too much for me to take
But break it down to this next breath
This next step
This next choice is one that I can make
You may think I am f-ing with you here. I am not f-ng with you.
I have never missed a PK with the weight of my entire country on my shoulders, nor stood on the sideline watching my bitter rival hand me a fourth straight defeat.
But I’ve battled my own mental health long enough to know what it means to stare into the abyss. And I’ve learned that often, the way forward is as simple as Queen Anna tells us it is: just do the next right thing.
So if life feels impossible right now - and I know it does for many of us - I urge you: make the choice, hear that voice, and just do the next right thing.
