How an Argentina fan predicted in 2015 the exact date that Messi would win the World Cup

It's been just over a week since Lionel Messi 'completed football' and won the World Cup with Argentina following a dramatic win in the final in Qatar over France.

Messi was named the best player in the tournament and scored two goals in the final to help his nation win their first World Cup since 1986 and cement his status as the 'greatest of all time.'

Given that Argentina lost their first match of the 2022 World Cup in a shock defeat to Saudi Arabia, it was touch and go whether they could actually help Messi win the whole thing but for one fan it was never in doubt as they had called the victory seven years ago.

Jose Miguel Polanco has gone viral in the past week and dubbed a 'time traveller' after he predicted on March 20th 2015 that Messi would finally win the World Cup. He also went one better and named the exact date that this would occur.

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Polanco wrote: "December 18, 2022. 34-year-old Leo Messi will win the World Cup and become the greatest player of all times. Check back with me in 7 years."

Although he didn't exactly get all the facts right (Messi turned 35 in June) you have to say that he couldn't have gotten this more spot, especially with the Qatar World Cup being the first held in the Winter but how did he do it?

Now unlike, some folks on TikTok Polanco does not claim to be a time traveller nor some sort of clairvoyant. Even more impressively there was another World Cup in 2018, where he could have made the prediction that Argentina would win. Yet, he didn't and rightly so as Argentina was knocked out in the round of 16 in Russia by France.

So, with all this in mind, you'll probably be a little disappointed that his prediction was relatively simple. Saying that Messi would win the tournament is not a ridiculous suggestion as despite being in the twilight of his career even in 2015 he would be considered to be one of the best players on the planet.

The date is even easier to explain as on March 19th 2015, the day before Polanco posted his tweet, Fifa confirmed that the 2022 World Cup would be the first ever played in the winter with the final set to happen on December 18th, which it did.

So there you go, no mystical forces or acts of science fiction going on behind this just logic and admiration for possibly the greatest footballer of all time.

While the result of the final has long been decided there is still controversy surrounding it. Referee Szymon Marciniak has admitted that he made "mistakes" during the game, including breaking up a French counter-attack over concerns that a player was injured.

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