Argentina were already in first place, everyone knew that. Messi was starting on the bench, everyone knew that too. With those premises, staying up until the middle of the night to watch a match against Jordan didn’t seem like the best idea: and yet those who did were treated to another, yet another piece of history written by Leo Messi in the 3-1 win that closed out the World Cup group stage.
Argentina may have started slowly, but they broke the deadlock from set pieces in the first half: in the 19th minute a perfect free-kick from Lo Celso, and then Lautaro’s penalty in the 31st minute for his first World Cup goal.
🤩 Messi comes on: not just the free-kick
Messi unstoppable: off the bench, free-kick
Tamari’s sudden sliding goal in the 51st minute threw the match back open, but Leo Messi firmly put it back in Argentina’s hands. Leo came on in the 60th minute to the crowd’s roar (which had already started during the warm-up) and immediately put on a show: first he tried a free-kick in the 65th minute (not actually a great one), popped up all over the pitch and lit up his heat map by full time, delivered perfect passes to everyone, and finally won a free-kick right on the edge of the box.
He took the free-kick himself and the ball flew into the net: 3-1 for the final score and his 19th World Cup goal, extending his status as the record-holder in every imaginable statistic.
This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇮🇹 here.
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