Lionel Scaloni’s side pushed past Australia and set up a delicious clash with the Netherlands – and their number 10 was at its best.
Lionel Messi has scored his first goal in the knockout stages of a World Cup and it was a crucial one as the Argentina captain broke the deadlock out of nowhere in a hard-fought 2-1 win over Australia.
Up to this point, the Socceroos had made life difficult for the Argentinian fans, who once again took up almost an entire stadium here in Qatar.
They came to see Lionel Messi celebrate the 1000th game of his incredible career with another master class and they ended up getting one, but next to nothing happened in the first 35 minutes.
The No. 10 was quickly surrounded by yellow shirts every time he received the ball, and he struggled to get ahead of proceedings.
Elsewhere, nobody in the Argentinian jersey looked like a breakthrough.
If history has taught us anything though, it’s that it takes Messi a split second to score and he did just that, responding first to what seemed more like a loose touch than a laydown of Nicolas Otamendi looked.
The deadly left foot did the rest, and the Paris Saint-Germain star simply passed the ball into the bottom corner of Australia’s net.
Julian Alvarez then capitalized on a shocking mistake by Mathew Ryan to make it 2-0 and although Australia set up a thrilling final thanks to a speculative shot from Craig Goodwin deflected by Enzo Fernandez, Argentina held on thanks to a great late block from Lisandro Martinez and a save nice stop by namesake Emiliano.
Under, GATE breaks down the winners, losers and ratings of another memorable night for Messi’s Argentina…