There is no closing quote to this story, because Lionel Messi did not give one. He and the rest of the Argentina squad walked past reporters on their way out of MetLife Stadium on Sunday night without stopping.

So what exists is a description rather than a statement. By ESPN's account he fought back tears, dropped to the grass with his hands behind him and stared, tried to smile and could not, and left through a corner exit with his shoulders hunched.

What is actually known about his future

Almost nothing, and it is worth resisting the temptation to fill the gap.

Messi has not said he is retiring from international football. He has not said he is continuing. He has said nothing at all since the final whistle.

The closest thing to information came from his coach. Lionel Scaloni said he had not yet spoken to Messi about whether he would go on playing for Argentina, which tells you only that the conversation had not happened by Sunday night.

That is a thinner basis for speculation than the volume of speculation suggests. He is 39, which makes the question obvious, and the next World Cup is four years away, which makes it close to answerable by arithmetic. But an obvious inference is not a statement, and this piece is not going to report one as though it were the other.

The tournament he had

The final was not the tournament, and it is worth separating them.

Messi scored eight goals across the competition, a total that would headline most players' careers and which left him second in the scoring charts. Kylian Mbappé finished with ten and took the Golden Boot, becoming the first player to win the award at two World Cups, and the margin held because Messi did not score in the final.

Spain won 1-0 in extra time. Ferran Torres settled it in the 106th minute, after Enzo Fernández had been sent off at the end of normal time, and Emiliano Martínez had made eleven saves, a record for a World Cup final. Argentina were beaten by a team that conceded a single goal in the entire tournament.

There is no version of that in which Messi failed. There is a version in which he was contained, which is different, and which the Spain side had done to better-placed opponents all month.

Why the silence is the story

A player of Messi's standing usually controls how these moments are framed. He has spent two decades giving the answer that ends the news cycle.

On Sunday he did not, and the absence is more eloquent than most of what could have been said. A decision about the rest of a career is not one to announce on the field twenty minutes after losing a final, and declining to be pushed into it is a defensible thing to do.

What that leaves is an Argentina squad whose central question is unresolved, a coach who has not yet asked it, and a player who has earned the right to take his time. When he answers, it will be worth reporting. Until then it is not news, however much it is discussed.