Sports Desk: Many people may not have imagined that Albiceleste will win today’s life-or-death match so easily. But world star Lionel Messi’s team eased that difficult task by crowning victory by a big margin and entered the final of the world stage. Argentinian star footballer Julián Alvarez showed surprise by scoring two goals in the semi-final match. His contribution to the victory of the team is not less.
The magic of Lionel Messi and Julián Alvarez saw the Albiceleste reach their dream World Cup final by beating Croatia 3-0 in today’s semi-final match.
At 1 pm Bangladesh time, Messi’s Argentina entered the field against Croatia with the conviction of winning the dream title in the World Cup. Lionel Messi led the team 1-0 by scoring from the penalty after 33 minutes of the hard-fought fight. After 38 minutes, Julián Alvarez scored to give Argentina a 2-0 lead. After that, the Argentines left the field with a 2-0 lead in the first half as there were no more goals in the rest of the period.
Argentina were more aggressive in the second half. The game looked like Croatia had accepted defeat. In the meantime, star footballer Julian Alvarez scored another goal in the 68th minute to give the team a 3-0 lead. This star made his name known on the world stage by scoring two goals in this important match.
In the 68th minute of the match, Messi took the ball alone from the middle of the box and passed the defender Verdiol to Alvarez in the box.
Messi has overtaken French star Kylian Mbappe as the top scorer in the World Cup. Both have 5 goals now. After Messi’s great goal, young Turk Alvarez made it 2-0 with a goal reminiscent of Diego Maradona in the 39th minute. Such a golden opportunity to break the 32-year World Cup drought may not happen again.
Messi has set many records. Only Portugal’s Eusebio and Netherlands’ Rob Rensenbrink are above Messi in penalty goals in a World Cup match. In the 1966 and 1978 World Cups, these two scored 4 goals each from penalties. In this season, Messi scored 3 goals from the penalty.
Messi’s fifth goal in Qatar World Cup
Argentine coach Lionel Scaloni made changes to the team again in such an important match. Scaloni chose a 4-4-2 formation today after moving away from the 3-5-2 formation of the previous match.
Instead of Acuna, who was banned for a yellow card in the previous match, the Argentinian coach took Paredes, another additional midfielder in the team. Tagliafico was given a chance to replace Lisandro Martinez. The change is quite useful.
On the other hand, Croatia came to the semifinals in a very cheerful mood after defeating Brazil in their mission to reach the World Cup finals for the second time in a row. So Coach Dalich arranged the team by relying on the previous eleven. However, the team failed to live up to that promise and exited the world stage with a loss against Argentina.
Who played in the original eleven in today’s match
Argentina XI: Formation (4-3-3)
Emiliano Martinez, Nicolas Otamendi, Cristian Romero, Tagliafico, Molina, Rodrigo de Paul, Enzo Fernandez, Alexis McAllister, Paredes, Lionel Messi, Julian Alvarez.
Coach: Lionel Scaloni
Croatia XI: Formation (4-3-3)
Dominic Livakovic, Josko Givardiol, Dejan Lovren, Sosa, Josip Juranovic, Marcelo Brozovic, Mateo Kovacic, Luka Modric, Pasalic, Ivan Perisic, Andrej Kramaric.
Coach: Zlatko Dalic
