I will always remember where I was the last time Argentina won the World Cup. It was June 1986 and they were playing West Germany in the final at the Azteca in Mexico City.

I was 14 years old and just starting my career. I had been at Newell’s Old Boys for six months but I was back home in Murphy for the final. At my first club, Centro Recreativo Union y Cultura, they set up a big screen to show the game. There must have been 500 people, including me, my family and my friends.

It was amazing to watch this game together, to watch my hero Diego Maradona and all the other players out there fighting for us, and winning 3-2. I will always remember that sight of Maradona lifting the trophy. It was really my first memory of a World Cup that I can still recall now in detail, coming at an age when I was just starting to feel football in different ways.

Afterwards, we all went into the town to celebrate together. It was amazing: there was a queue of cars heading into town, and then in the main square — there is only one square in Murphy — we were celebrating, shouting, sharing the happiness. Just like you saw in Argentina on Tuesday night after the semi-final win.

Our feeling was that this was our victory. Our own World Cup. And looking at the scenes in Argentina now, I think that is how the people will feel on Sunday if Argentina win our third World Cup. And there are a lot of similarities between this campaign and 1986.

I was talking with Mario Kempes (who played in 1978) and Jorge Valdano (who played in 1986) about exactly this. It feels like a similar history. In 1986, the team understood that if they built the team around the best player in the world — Maradona then, Messi now — then everything would be possible.

For me, this is the most important thing about this Argentina team, and why they are in the final on Sunday. It is because the players fully understand their jobs: when you have Messi in your team, you need to run for him. And when you have the ball, you need to give it to him as soon as possible so that he can create something. So the players know what they need to do in every single moment, to give Messi everything he needs to be decisive, like he was on Tuesday night against Croatia.