Lionel Scaloni’s facet edged previous Australia to set-up a mouth-watering assembly with the Netherlands – and their No.10 was at his devastating greatest.
Lionel Messi has his first objective within the knockout stage of a World Cup, and boy was it an important one, with the Argentina captain breaking the impasse out of nowhere in a hard-fought 2-1 win over Australia.
Up till that time, the Socceroos had annoyed the life out of the Argentina followers, who as soon as once more took over almost a complete stadium right here in Qatar.
That they had come to see Lionel Messi mark the one thousandth recreation of his unimaginable profession with one other masterclass, and so they ultimately obtained one, however, for the primary 35 minutes, just about nothing occurred.
The No.10 was shortly surrounded by yellow shirts each time he obtained the ball and he struggled to impose himself on the proceedings.
No person else in an Argentine shirt seemed like making a breakthrough both.
If historical past has taught us something, although, it is that Messi solely wants a break up second to attain, and that is exactly what he did, reacting first to what seemed extra like a free contact than a lay-off from Nicolas Otamendi.
That deadly left foot took care of the remainder, with the Paris Saint-Germain star merely passing the ball into the underside nook of the Australia web.
Julian Alvarez then took benefit of a stunning mistake from Mathew Ryan to make it 2-0 and though Australia arrange a tense finale courtesy of a speculative shot from Craig Goodwin that deflected in off Enzo Fernandez, Argentina held on because of a terrific late block from Lisandro Martinez, and a tremendous cease from namesake Emiliano.
Beneath, GOAL breaks down the winners, losers and rankings from one other memorable evening for Messi’s Argentina…