KHALID HOSSAIN

History tells us that genius cannot exist safely in a vacuum, for to be completely unique is to be entirely alone. The grandest epics are never stories of a single soul, but of pairs. The ancient texts give us Rama, a legendary figure who could only endure his 14-year exile because Lakshman chose to walk the wilderness beside him.

Relatively modern mythology echoes this truth through Frodo Baggins, whose march into Mordor would have failed had Samwise Gamgee not been there to bear the weight of the world when the hero’s knees buckled. Even the brilliant mind of Sherlock Holmes required the grounding presence of Dr. John Watson to keep him from spinning into chaos.

Back in 2014, when an 18-year-old Rodrigo De Paul was beginning his professional journey at Racing Club, watching Lionel Messi taste the bitter heartbreak of the World Cup final, his path was already aligning with this archetype. Breaking into a fractured national team of Argentina in 2018, De Paul entered the locker room with a singular focus: to protect the genius.

A symbiotic brotherhood took root, distinctly separate from the club-level friendships Messi had shared with Dani Alves, Neymar, or Luis Suarez at Barcelona. Those were bonds formed at the equal altitude of Europe’s peaks, whereas De Paul’s devotion was something rarer.

When Messi migrated to the United States to turn soccer into football, De Paul defied the conventional European career trajectory -- leaving a starting role at Atletico Madrid -- to follow him to Inter It It

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