LIONEL MESSI broke my senior colleague’s heart when he appealed to send off Spain’s Marc Cucurella in the 2026 FIFA World Cup final. With Enzo Fernandez out and Argentina down to 10 players, was Messi desperate to level the playing field?
Messi says that Cucurella had covered his mouth while talking, which is culpable. Cucurella says he was referring to teammate Pau Cubarasi’s bleeding upper lip. So, was it a miscommunication or a strategic move by Messi? We will never know, but people will place themselves firmly in one camp or the other.
For example, my colleague believes it was strategy. “At that point, Messi simply ceased to be an emotion for me, and was reduced to a great footballer. Perhaps, the Greatest of All Time (GOAT),” he said. That moment and the halo of emotions sum up football in all its glory, ego, romance and heartbreak. Hence, this cover.
Malayala Manorama Coordinating Editor Antony John writes the lead piece on why history is not all numbers, and that is where Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo loses out on the GOATness. Messi had GOATness thrust upon him by what his club and country needed, John argues. Then THE WEEK’s football-mad staffers list the players who are prospective heirs to the GOAT throne. Chief Subeditor Karthik Ravindranath, Senior Subeditor Bechu S. and contributor Job Rinol from Portugal list out the heirs.
Far from the playing fields, Ambassador Dr Mohammad Fathali, the Islamic Republic of Iran’s representative to India, writes on Iran, India and the multipolar world. Brigadier Anil Raman (retd) explains why Trumpistas’ fatigue with President Donald Trump will see him losing the midterms. Closer to home, CPI(M) leader Brinda Karat shares her memories of Battlefield Jantar Mantar and why its denotification as a protest site has larger ramifications.
@leisure packs a strong punch, which opens with Senior Correspondent Shubhangi Shah’s interview with journalist and author Tavleen Singh. They talk about Singh’s latest book, The Actor. Deputy News Editor Navin J. Antony introduces the lesser-known Roy Cohn, the lawyer who shaped Trump’s worldview, against the backdrop of his biography—American Scoundrel: Roy Cohn’s Dark Journey from Joe McCarthy to Donald Trump.
Special Correspondent Anjuly Mathai reviews Shivani Sibal’s book, Moms, and says that she liked the author’s level of detail. Shivani admitted elsewhere that she grew up in a home with strong women, including her mother, Namita Gokhale. And she married into a family with another strong diplomat-writer at the helm, the late Nina Sibal—though their time together was brief, as I understand. No pressure, Shivani.
I am signing this letter with a happy heart. One of journalism’s greatest joys is when an article improves the life of the person featured in it. THE WEEK’s Independence Day cover dated August 23, 2026, was by Principal Correspondent Nirmal Jovial—on rescued bonded labourers.
The poignant cover image by Photo Editor Bhanu Prakash Chandra showed the one-armed Santosh Rishidev, a minor bonded labour survivor from Khurkhuriya, Bihar. As I write this letter, Santosh has just received Rs10 lakh in compensation from the Haryana government.
Rishidev had been forced into bonded labour by Haryana-based farm owner, Anil Kumar. After he lost an arm in a fodder-cutting machine accident, Kumar and his associates allegedly abandoned him in a remote area to die. Thanks to the Haryana Human Rights Commission’s suo motu intervention, Kumar was arrested in UP’s Gautam Buddha Nagar, and the compensation was quickly disbursed to Rishidev.
This win is less about THE WEEK and more about you, dear reader. Rishidev is now seeing the dawn of hope because you support Journalism with a Human Touch, and I sincerely thank you for that.
