Right. I've seen a lot in my time. I've seen Wimbledon beat Liverpool in a cup final. I've seen a goalkeeper score from his own half. I've seen a man get sent off for kicking a ball boy. But this morning I opened my phone, saw that LEGO have released a range of mini-figures based on World Cup stars including Messi and Ronaldo, and I genuinely had to go and sit in the garden for ten minutes.

LEGO. Little plastic bricks. The things you used to step on in your bare feet at three in the morning and nearly put yourself through a wall. Those LEGO. They've turned Lionel Messi into a two-inch plastic figurine with a painted-on smile and a little moulded haircut. They've done the same to Ronaldo. And people are losing their minds over it like it's the second coming.

In my day, you know what we had? Panini stickers. And you were grateful. You'd spend three months trying to find the last sticker for your album. It was always some reserve goalkeeper from Cameroon. You'd trade your entire duplicates pile for it outside the newsagent. That was football merchandise. That had soul. That taught you about sacrifice and negotiation and the crushing reality of supply and demand. What does a LEGO Messi teach you? How to lose a tiny plastic football boot down the back of the sofa?

That's the problem with modern football. Everything has to be a brand extension. Everything has to be a product launch. You can't just play the game anymore. You have to be a franchise. Messi's not a footballer at this point. He's an ecosystem. He's got the Inter Miami deal, the Apple TV thing, the Saudi tourism adverts, and now he's a plastic brick figure. The man is 38 years old and heading to his last World Cup, and instead of talking about his legacy on the pitch, we're talking about whether his LEGO figure comes with a little detachable World Cup trophy.

And Ronaldo. Don't get me started. The man already looks like he was designed in a lab. Now they've actually gone and designed him in a factory. Probably the most realistic LEGO figure they've ever made, to be fair, because Ronaldo's been moving like a plastic figurine for the last two years anyway. Stiff. Upright. Immovable. Just standing in the box waiting for someone to push him towards the ball.

Look, I know I sound like a miserable old sod. I know kids love LEGO. I know it's harmless fun. But there's something deeply wrong about a sport that charges nearly eleven grand for a World Cup final ticket and then also tries to flog you a three-quid plastic footballer on the side. It's not football anymore. It's a theme park. Next they'll have a LEGO VAR booth. Little plastic officials hunched over a little plastic monitor getting a little plastic decision wrong. Actually, that might be the most realistic thing LEGO have ever produced.

I managed Barnet reserves in 1997. You know what merchandise we had? A pen. One pen. It had "Barnet FC" written on it and the ink ran out after three days. Nobody complained. Nobody expected anything more. You came to watch football, not buy a lifestyle collection.

The World Cup is supposed to be the pinnacle of the sport. The greatest competition in football. And now it's a toy launch. Messi and Ronaldo deserve to be remembered for what they did on the grass, not for what they look like when they're shrink-wrapped in a box next to a LEGO pirate and a LEGO astronaut.

I'm going to go and step on one barefoot. Just to feel something real.