Back, then, to Berlin. Saturday's Champions League final between Barcelona and Juventus offers three Juve players -- Gianluigi Buffon, Andrea Barzagli and Andrea Pirlo -- a chance to relive a moment they will never forget: helping Italy win the 2006 World Cup, the high point of their careers. But they are not the only ones for whom the German capital holds memories. Lionel Messi, Javier Mascherano and Carlos Tevez all remember Berlin, too.
Argentina were the best team in that tournament. Their failure to win it might not have been quite as devastating for purists as seeing Brazil fall short in 1982, or the magisterial Dutch falter at the last in 1974 and 1978, but it was in the same ballpark.
Jose Pekerman's side were a wonder, built around the enigmatic Juan Roman Riquelme, full of guile and craft and vision. They swept all before them in the group stage, their brilliance encapsulated in the infinite passing move that culminated in Esteban Cambiasso's goal in the rout of Serbia. They beat Mexico in the round of 16 thanks to an extraordinary strike from Maxi Rodriguez and were well on course to beat the Germans in the quarterfinal, too, until what will, one day, become known simply as Pekerman's Mistake.
Leading through Roberto Ayala's second-half goal with just 18 minutes to play, Pekerman decided the time had come to shut up shop. He took Riquelme off in favour of the more defensive and industrious Cambiasso. It was the sensible thing to do: hold on, hold out and rest the playmaker who had just inspired Villarreal to the Champions League semifinals for the looming showdown with Italy in Dortmund.
It did not work. Argentina lost all rhythm and all control. Eight minutes later, Miroslav Klose equalised for the hosts. Extra time came and went; Germany, needless to say, does not lose on penalties. The game ended with Jurgen Klinsmann's side in the semifinals, a nation in ecstasy and a brawl sparked by a clash between Gabriel Heinze and Oliver Bierhoff. Argentina went home in a cloud of acrimony, their dreams broken yet again. That is what Berlin means to Tevez, Mascherano and Messi.
It is intriguing, now, to watch footage of the end of that game. Mascherano is not part of the fracas. He sits on the floor, utter dejection etched on to his face. Nor, it seems, is Tevez, his shirt removed from his back, trudging off the pitch as Ayala, Heinze and Rodriguez lead the rest of Pekerman's team in confronting Bierhoff (it is not immediately clear what he has done to vex them). Messi is nowhere to be seen.
All three of those things prove how long ago that game was. Nowadays, the chances of Javier Mascherano allowing a confrontation to evolve without his involvement are slim indeed. He might not be the world's best footballer (he is not even Barcelona's) but he has spent the past eight years serving as the beating heart of every side he has played in. Mascherano would, at best, be trying to defuse the tension. There is a pretty good chance he might have started it.
Much the same could be said of Tevez, his close friend who will become his opponent in Berlin this weekend. He is another who plays with fire and brimstone, channelling the frustration and anger of his upbringing on the streets of Fuerte Apache into his every performance. He is not the sort of player, now, who lets anything pass him by.
But the most significant absence in that brawl is that of Messi. The 27-year-old would not get involved in something so unseemly, even now; it has long been one of the myriad sources of his appeal that he does not really sully himself with such tawdriness. He gets kicked and then he gets back up. Messi might be trouble, but he does not cause it. No, the reason Messi is not around is because Argentina started and finished that game, a World Cup quarterfinal, without him on the pitch.
Of course, that seems unconscionable now, but 2006 feels like a lifetime ago. Back then, Messi was still caught in that hinterland between potential and realisation. A month or so earlier, Barcelona had taken to the field in (and won) the Champions League without him on the pitch because they did not deem it necessary to gamble on his fitness. Ludovic Giuly played instead. Pekerman's decision to omit him for that quarterfinal, without even using him as a substitute, caused some consternation and a little bit of bafflement, but it was hardly earth-shattering.
That game in Berlin, though, does serve as something of a watershed in Messi's career. That is probably the last major game for club or country in which he was not an unquestioned presence in the starting lineup. Within a year, he would appear for the first time in the top three for both the Ballon d'Or and the FIFA World Player of the Year (the two were only merged in 2010) and by 2009, he would win them both.
In other words, 2006 was the last year in which Messi was not considered to be one of or simply the finest player on the planet. It was the last year of a different era: the pre-Messianic age. Given how he has redefined his sport and changed the parameters of what it is to be great, it is fitting that he should return to Berlin to remind us of how great an influence he has had.
The Mascherano and Tevez that return to Berlin are very different now, too. The last time they were here, they had yet to play competitively in Europe. Both were still with Corinthians, pawns in the power games of agent Kia Joorabchian. They would use the World Cup as a springboard to the old world, pitching up (with varying degrees of success) at West Ham before their paths splintered: Mascherano went to Liverpool and then Barcelona while Tevez tried both sides of Manchester before shuffling on to Turin.
It is only in these last couple of years, though, that both might finally have started to fulfil the promise which led Pekerman to trust them, despite their tender years, for that quarterfinal in which he did not afford the same privilege to Messi.
With regard to Tevez, a lazy analysis might suggest that his greatest enemy was always himself: his refusal to stay on at Manchester United, the mutiny which overshadowed his time at Manchester City, the constant threat of strike action and lingering sense that he was hard work. That, though, would not be fair. By far the greatest obstacle to Tevez's success has always been the man who was in control of his destiny. For a long time, that was not the player himself. It is only since his arrival at Juventus that he seems to have been allowed to feel as though he has finally settled.
Mascherano, by contrast, was always likely to need a little more time to be appreciated. He was never the sort of player who would catch the eye immediately: a destroyer more than a creator, rarely inclined to play a pass more than 10 or 15 yards unless absolutely necessary.
At West Ham, Alan Pardew regularly (and bizarrely) left him out because he preferred the midfield style of Hayden Mullins. It took a move to Liverpool, under Rafael Benitez, to get him back on track. Even then he went under the radar; the balance he gave to that side was overlooked because Xabi Alonso was more cerebral and Steven Gerrard more dynamic.
Finally, at Barcelona, he is now being seen for what he is: a footballer of remarkable intelligence and versatility. He has turned himself into something between a central defender and a central midfield player and, more than that, into the very embodiment of a captain. He does not wear the armband for either club or country, but speak to anyone who works with him at either, and they will leave you in no doubt as to his importance to both.
None of the Argentine trio who return to Berlin this week will do so with fond memories of the city. All of the misty-eyed nostalgia will be left to Buffon, Pirlo and Barzagli, who conquered the world here nine years ago. For Messi, Tevez and Mascherano, though, the journey is a chance to reflect on something else. Not on a single peak they scaled long ago, but all of the mountains they have climbed since.
Rory Smith is a columnist for ESPN FC and The Times. Follow him on Twitter @RorySmithTimes.