Lionel Messi walks alone through the Croatia penalty area as goalkeeper Livakovic has his hands on his hips. He twice clenches his fist towards the fans and is embraced by Julián Álvarez, the beneficiary of another magical move by the Argentine number 10 who is one game away from being world champion.
If one of the most common phrases of his career is that football owes Lionel Messi a World Cup, Qatar is close to solving the problem.
Top scorer of the tournament alongside Mbappé (five goals) and top scorer of his national team in the history of the tournament (11), Messi walked on the field in Argentina’s 3-0 defeat of Croatia in the semifinal this Tuesday (13).
On Sunday (18), the team faces the winner of the confrontation between France and Morocco, who play this Wednesday (14) for the other vacancy in the decision.
Messi’s last World Cup match will be a final. He hopes that with a different result than in 2014, when he was runner-up at Maracanã after losing to Germany. But this 2022 shirt 10 is a different player. He doesn’t look like the same Lionel who missed two chances that could have changed the course of that match eight years ago.
Every time he picks up the ball, an expectation is created in the stadium of what will happen. The Messi of today is theoretically one of the strikers for the national team, but he is always looking for empty spaces on the field, places where he can receive the ball.
In this World Cup, there have already been goals from outside the area, brilliant passes, shots from one side of the field to the other, sprints against four opponents and shots in numbers that he has never scored in the competition.
Against Croatia, all this happened. The genius of one of the greatest players in history summed up in 90 minutes of football.
In the 35th minute, he scored from the penalty spot after Livakovic brought down Julian Álvarez in the area. The South American team was already growing on the field and taking over the match. Croatia’s big moment was Modric threading the ball between MacAllister’s legs.
After the quarterfinal battle against the Netherlands, the semi was much less tense for the Argentine fans inside the stadium and for the thousands who walk the streets of the Qatari capital without a ticket.
Once again the majority in the stadium, they arrived in Lusail celebrating. They soothed a crying child on the subway with lullabies in Spanish. They put it on their shoulders and threw it into the air, a reporter from ESPN Argentina who was speaking live at the exit of the Lusail station, sang the name of Diego Maradona.
When the break came, Álvarez had scored the second just by not giving up on the play. The ball hit his chest left free to push towards the goal. He would later make another one and this one would be much easier.
There were concerns at times. At certain points in the first half and at half-time, Messi placed his hand on the back of his left thigh. He seemed to squeeze it. He started after a hit he received early in the match. But he ran without seeming to struggle and definitely played like he didn’t have a care in the world.
He got tired of taking out his Croatian marker to dance. And every moment was different. Or two. On the 24th minute of the second half, he pretended to go one way, went the other way and gave the goal to Álvarez.
As with Molina’s pass for the first goal against the Netherlands, it gives the impression that Lionel Messi sees a game that no one else sees.
Croatia spent the final 25 minutes defeated on the field, with no response. Not that it was a disappointment for the greatest generation in the history of football in the country, runner-up in 2018 and who will play for third place in 2022.
It should be Modric’s last World Cup game, voted best in the competition four years ago and who remains at the heart of a team that has once again surprised.
Anyone who watched Argentina’s opening defeat against Saudi Arabia would have a hard time predicting what would happen in the following matches. A campaign that undergoes changes made by Lionel Scaloni. Two of the most important were the additions of Alexis MacAllister and Enzo Fernández in midfield. Changes that gave the team the stability it lacked in the first game.
And they made it possible for Lionel Messi to be Lionel Messi in his farewell to the World Cup.
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