It was a performance you just don’t see in the final of a World Cup.

Carli Lloyd scored a hat trick in 16 minutes in the Women’s World Cup final on Sunday, blowing the game open for the United States and launching them to a 5-2 win over Japan.

It was the greatest individual performance in a World Cup final ever.

I don’t care if you’re a man or woman. It doesn’t matter. Scoring a hat trick in 16 minutes in a final, with the third goal being a shot from half field, that’s it. That’s the end of discussion.

Pele was genius in 1958 and 1970. Zidane was huge for France in the final in 1998. Ronaldo took over the 2002 final. Geoff Hurst scored a hat trick in 1966 — the only man to ever score a hat trick in a World Cup final — but he didn’t put all three in before the twenty-minute mark, and he didn’t top off the hat trick by putting in probably the cheekiest goal ever scored in a final. That’s what Lloyd did on Sunday.

The thing you have to realize is that performances like that just don’t happen in finals. Not of the World Cup. Finals are almost always marked by caution — neither team wants to mess up, so they sit back, don’t take chances, everyone desperate not to make a mistake.

And then there’s Lloyd, flying in for goals on two set pieces, then launching a shot from half field. It’s a shot that a lot of coaches would bench players for taking.

Lloyd taking that shot would be like Stephen Curry pulling up from his own half, in Game 7 of the NBA Finals, and swishing it. Just because.

It didn’t make any sense. It shouldn’t have worked. But it worked.

Lloyd is an enigmatic player. She was reportedly disgruntled with the United States’ tactics for much of the tournament, eager to have more freedom in the attack. In the semifinal against Germany, USWNT coach Jill Ellis finally gave her that freedom, and Lloyd went off.

She was the best player in the semifinal, playing a floating second striker role, one that allowed her to do pretty much anything she wanted. If she wanted to drop back in the midfield, she could do that. If she wanted to push up top, that was her prerogative.

She was given total freedom to express herself, and she did just that. Brilliantly. Again and again. In a podcast with Laken Litman before the final, I said I was worried Japan would put a player on Lloyd whose sole responsibility it was to mark her. Just shut down Lloyd entirely, and make another American player beat them.

Japan didn’t do that. They decided to stick to their tactics, play a 4-4-2, leaving a gap in between their defenders and midfielders for Lloyd to set up shop. As soon as I saw that, I thought Lloyd could have a big game.

Scoring a hat trick in 16 minutes, though? I didn’t see that. You never see that. It doesn’t happen.

It will go down as one of the greatest individual performances in any World Cup game, and for my money, for the final, that’s it. Lloyd redefined what was possible on Sunday.

She was perfect. And perfection in a World Cup final is a very, very rare thing.