Lionel Messi did not merely inhabit one era of football. He travelled through several of them. He emerged before social media could manufacture teenage superstars, before algorithms identified talent across continents and before GPS data, analytics and hyper-specialised academies began measuring almost every movement of an elite footballer. More than two decades later, Messi leaves the international stage with the sport almost unrecognisable from the one he entered. Former FIFA international referee and ex-PGMOL chief Keith Hackett believes another extraordinary talent can certainly emerge, but recreating Messi is another proposition altogether. In an exclusive conversation with Sports Now, Hackett explains why instinct, repetition, imagination and something as simple as a child spending countless hours with a football created a genius modern technology may struggle to manufacture. Before asking whether football could ever find another Messi, there is a more fundamental question: what exactly is it trying to replace? Pelé helped carry football across borders and Maradona became an almost mythical expression of its romance. For Hackett, Messi's cultural inheritance is different. A generation of children scattered across the world who saw themselves in him every time they found something resembling a football and created their own game. "I think, culturally, he's carried his country's shirt for a long time with great dignity. And I think that sport is such a driver of many things. He remained healthy in that period. He's worked off the field of play. I'm sure he has influenced many youngsters around the world to take up football. Because when shirts are put down on the ground to act as goalposts and the ball is made up of whatever, it hardly resembles a football. In those streets around the world that don't have the wealth that we have in certain countries, these kids replicate what they see," Hackett highlighted. "And often they'll talk to themselves and they'll be Maradona, they'll be Lionel Messi, or if they're in the goal, they'll try and follow the goalkeepers. I think this is why it's so important that at the highest level, the game's image is maintained appropriately. And I think this is why, in a World Cup that was played in three countries, and that's demanding, I saw some really good refereeing and saw some indifferent officiating; but the image of the game was in a good place," he believed. But the football those children inherit today is radically different from Messi. Talent can now be identified through data, analysed through video and developed inside increasingly sophisticated academies, while a teenager's brilliance can travel around the planet within seconds. Messi became Messi before much of that machinery existed. So can a sport increasingly engineered around science, information and optimisation still produce something as gloriously instinctive as him? "I think we never have to say no to that because I think that the game continues to be demanding but there are also remarkable rewards. In the end, finances for football players, and even for referees, have changed dramatically, along with everything else. The demand on the individual to become a Lionel Messi is tough because, as you rightly say, part of Lionel Messi's career was before social media. You know, everything was positive," the former top FIFA official stressed. "Those who went to pay at the stadium saw the game. We might have been lucky to see the odd clips on the national television news. Now, everything's on social media. Youngsters around the world can look at their phones, look at Lionel Messi, look at others, and judge the type of player they see. I think there are some really good referees, good players coming through, sorry, but they've got some way to go to get to Messi." "Pelé played, I think, his first international game at the age of 17. Messi did the same. So, when they're coming at age 17 to play for their international team, it's remarkable in itself and therefore I think that the game has to encourage kids to participate and enjoy it because I'm sure that Pelé, I know Messi and Maradona will have enjoyed participating in the game because it's remarkable," Hackett said. "I can remember a guy here, Howard Wilkinson, who was a player but also became the manager of Leeds United and won the Premier League and he was the catalyst for setting up academies here in England. He suggested and his first thought was every kid should have a football and so his projection was let's increase the skill sets because when you look at all the training books, they'll all say if you do things 10,000 times, your body shape, your body language reads and anticipates and is aware of what to do and Messi's been doing that for an awful long time and now he'll enjoy the twilight of his career in America, playing for Inter Miami and he's already doing some remarkable things," the 82-year-old added. "But what is football about? Football is an