Tom Brady and Novak Djokovic Grill Lionel Messi at Bizarre Star-Studded World Cup Final Preview

Tom Brady, Novak Djokovic and Kevin Durant shared a stage in New York on Friday night, and none of them were there to talk about their own sports. Instead, the three of them took turns interviewing Lionel Messi, Lionel Scaloni, Emiliano Martinez, Luis de la Fuente and Rodri ahead of Sunday’s World Cup final between Argentina and Spain, in a preview news conference that looked nothing like a normal preview news conference. Before the group left the stage, every one of them got a selfie with Messi.

A Presser Unlike Any Other

FIFA chose Fanatics Fest, a four-day sports and entertainment event in New York, as the setting for its final preview news conferences, putting Messi and the rest of the Argentina and Spain contingent in front of an audience that would not normally get close to a World Cup press event. Hundreds of people packed into the theater for the chance to see Messi in a setting usually reserved for accredited media rather than the public, and the format on offer bore no resemblance to the usual rows of reporters and translated questions. Rather than reporters asking the questions, some of the biggest names in other sports did the asking instead. Brady, the most decorated Super Bowl champion in NFL history, opened by pressing Messi on a photo that had gone viral over the previous week, one showing a 19-year-old Messi bathing a baby boy who grew up to be Spain forward Lamine Yamal. “What a crazy picture,” Messi said.

Djokovic, the man with more men’s Grand Slam titles than anyone in tennis history, turned to Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni and asked him about handling pressure, then put a version of the same question to Messi. When Messi finished answering, Djokovic simply said, “Gracias, Leo.” He then asked Spain coach Luis de la Fuente and captain Rodri about staying composed in big moments, before Brady returned to ask Rodri what he planned to tell his teammates ahead of Sunday. Durant, the only four-time Olympic gold medalist in men’s basketball history, closed things out by asking Argentina goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez what it would mean to win back-to-back World Cups.

What the Players Said

Rodri did not hold back when asked about facing Messi across the pitch on Sunday. “It goes beyond words what Messi means as a player and what he means for Argentina,” Rodri said. “Obviously, for me, he’s the greatest of all times.”

Messi, for his part, kept his answers short and pointed toward the match itself rather than the spectacle around it. “We will give it our all,” he said when the tournament was raised directly. Later, reflecting on the difficulty of Argentina’s route back to the final, he added: “I’ve said many times: We never stop fighting.”

Scaloni tried to play down the occasion even as he stood in the middle of it. “It’s one more game,” he said. “We cannot really think about the fact that it’s a World Cup final.” He struck a different tone by the end of the evening, telling those gathered, “Sunday is going to be a great show.”

Martinez was the most direct about what the result would mean back home. “We’ve got a group of players and a group of coaches that are working incredibly hard every single day to try to bring happiness to my country,” the goalkeeper said. “We’re going to give absolutely our best, with Leo, with the team that we have, to bring the World Cup back to my country and celebrate with our people.”

A Bumpy Road Back to New York

Argentina arrive at Sunday’s final unbeaten and untied through seven matches, but the record understates how much trouble they have had to work through to get there. They needed to rally from a 1-0 second-half deficit to beat England in the semifinals, rallied from a 2-0 second-half deficit to beat Egypt in the round of 16, and needed extra time to get past both Cape Verde in the round of 32 and Switzerland in the quarterfinals. Spain’s path has looked calmer by comparison, with their only blemish a draw against Cape Verde in their opening match, though de la Fuente’s side have had to be patient and precise rather than spectacular to reach the same stage.

Whatever anxiety either camp is carrying, neither showed much of it on stage on Friday. Messi smiled and waved as fans in the theater held up their phones rather than applauding, more interested in capturing the moment than marking it in the traditional way. It was a reminder that even at 39, closing in on the end of his international career, Messi remains a draw capable of pulling other sports’ biggest stars into his orbit for an evening.

By the time the event wrapped up, the players and coaches were joined for photographs by actor and comedian Kevin Hart, rapper and producer Travis Scott, former England defender Rio Ferdinand and Fanatics chief executive Michael Rubin, all gathering around the two World Cup finalists for one last selfie before the tournament’s biggest match arrived. Neither Scaloni nor de la Fuente allowed the circus atmosphere to distract from the message both were sending underneath it. Argentina and Spain had come through five weeks of football to earn a place in that theater, and both coaches used their moments on stage to point back toward the ninety minutes still to come rather than the celebrities sitting alongside them.

A Golden Boot Race Playing Out Alongside the Final

The individual storylines around Sunday’s match extend beyond Messi’s pursuit of a second World Cup. Kylian Mbappe moved two goals clear of Messi at the top of the tournament’s all-time scoring charts in France’s third-place defeat to England on Saturday, finishing his World Cup with the outright record even as his team missed out on the final altogether. That race will not be settled on the pitch on Sunday, with neither Mbappe nor France involved in the final, but it adds another layer to a tournament in which two of the sport’s biggest individual figures have spent five weeks chasing history in different directions, one with his team still playing for the trophy and one already packing for home.

Messi has stayed focused on the collective prize rather than any personal tally throughout the buildup, a pattern that continued at Fanatics Fest even as Brady and Djokovic tried to draw him into lighter territory. His answers stayed short, his tone stayed even, and his attention appeared to already be on Sunday rather than the cameras in front of him.

What Sunday Means

The last team to win consecutive World Cup titles was Brazil, back in 1958 and 1962, and Messi now has the chance to add that achievement to a resume that already includes almost everything else the sport has to offer. Argentina’s players will carry that history into East Rutherford knowing the toll it has taken to get back to a final, having survived four knockout matches that could easily have gone the other way. Spain, unbeaten in six matches and stung only by one dropped point against Cape Verde, will arrive believing their control and organization across the tournament are exactly the tools needed to stop a team that has spent the last month treating adversity as routine.

Both camps head into the match having already answered plenty of questions about their nerve. Argentina have not lost a knockout match at this World Cup, even while trailing in three of their last four games, a pattern that has tested the resolve of Scaloni’s squad again and again without breaking it. Spain, by contrast, have barely been tested at all beyond their opening stalemate, conceding a single goal across six matches while their captain and midfield have controlled games from start to finish. Sunday will be the first time all tournament that Argentina’s habit of finding a way and Spain’s habit of preventing one meet in the same match.

Kickoff at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford is set for Sunday evening, with a global audience that FIFA and broadcasters have estimated at somewhere near 1.5 billion people expected to watch across the world. Whatever happens in the ninety minutes that follow, few World Cup finals will have been preceded by a news conference quite like the one that played out at Fanatics Fest, where the biggest names in tennis, basketball and American football spent an evening asking the questions instead of answering them, all so they could walk away with a photo alongside the game’s biggest star. By Sunday night, one of these two dressing rooms will be doing the celebrating, and the other will be left to reflect on a run to the final that, for all the noise and glamour of Friday’s send-off, still ended one match short of the trophy both squads came to New York chasing. Brady, Djokovic and Durant will be watching from wherever they end up on Sunday evening, but this time the questions will belong to the two teams on the pitch, not the celebrities in the seats.