It is already Lionel Messi’s best World Cup so far. The only thing missing is the crowning glory. The superstar leads Argentina into the final with a 3-0 win over Croatia.
Argentina’s superstar Lionel Messi is just one victory away from his long-awaited first World Cup title. The six-time world footballer led his team to a clear 3-0 (2-0) victory over Croatia in the first semi-final of this World Cup on Tuesday evening. Messi scored the first goal himself in the 34th minute with a penalty kick. The 35-year-old set up the 2:0 and 3:0 goals for his strike partner Julian Álvarez (39./69.).
In front of 88,966 spectators at the Lusail Stadium, the Croatians were only able to cope with the individual class of the two Argentine strikers in the early stages. They also missed out on a second successive appearance in the final because this strong-nerved team, of all teams, made crucial defensive mistakes.
Argentina now await their final opponents on Wednesday evening: defending champions France or the big World Cup surprise Morocco. The South Americans have already won the title in 1978 and 1986. Messi himself, however, never got further than the 2014 final, which he lost 1-0 to Germany, in his previous four World Cup appearances. On Tuesday night, he once again confirmed that his fifth World Cup so far is by far his best.
The match against 2018 finalists Croatia also began with the Paris Saint-Germain striker equalling a 24-year-old World Cup record set by Lothar Matthäus. Both have now made 25 appearances at a World Cup. However, Messi is still five goals short of first place in the all-time World Cup scoring list. Miroslav Klose occupies the top spot with 16 goals.
Other than that, nothing went according to plan for Argentina’s number 10, at least at the start. Messi grabbed his back left thigh several times after just a few minutes and stretched his muscles. He was also largely cut off from the game at first because the Croatians were already blocking the passing lanes in the direction of the superstar and the support of his own team-mates was quite clear. Coach Lionel Scaloni sacrificed the third offensive player in favour of a more defensive formation, as he had done in the quarter-final victory against the Netherlands.
And so the favourites were helped by something that happened only very rarely at this and the last World Cup: a complete Croatian loss of control. Before the 1:0, the ball slipped under the sole of Real Madrid’s star Luka Modric in midfield. Argentina’s Enzo Fernandez crossed the ball to striker Álvarez, who was fouled by goalkeeper Dominik Livakovic in the penalty area – and Messi converted the spot kick into the top right corner of the goal.
The 2:0 only five minutes later even came after a Croatian corner kick and a much more serious chain of errors. This time Messi played the ball to Álvarez – and two Croatian defenders scythed past it in the penalty area. Their much-vaunted hard-nosedness and stability let the Croats down in the crucial minutes of a World Cup semi-final.
Shortly before and shortly after the break they were twice lucky not to swallow a third goal very quickly. Alexis Mac Allister (43rd) and Messi (58th) both failed to beat Livakovic, who reacted well.
The Croatians now threw almost everything into the game that their substitutes’ bench could offer: Mislav Orsic, Nikola Vlasic and Bruno Petkovic, the late goal scorer of the Brazil game, came into the game until the 50th minute. However, the 2018 World Cup finalists did not become more dangerous as a result. After a convincing first 20 minutes, Croatia remained completely harmless and without ideas. Even their co-coach Mario Mandzukic, who is responsible for the attackers in the squad, could not help them any more: The former Bayern goal scorer was shown the red card for protesting on the bench (35th).