Lionel Messi has a great chance to fulfill his dream of winning the World Cup in Qatar. With Argentina, the football superstar made it into the final in the evening with a 3-0 (2-0) win against vice-world champions Croatia. The South Americans are in their sixth final, meeting either holders France or underdogs Morocco on Sunday.
For Argentina, after 1978 and 1986, the third World Cup triumph is possible. Croatia, on the other hand, missed the second final after 2018. Messi safely converted a penalty kick (34th minute) and Julián Álvarez twice (39th and 69th) after Messi scored the victory for the Argentines. With his eleventh World Cup goal, Messi is now his country’s record goalscorer. In addition, he equaled the record set by Germany’s former world champion Lothar Matthäus with his 25th World Cup game.
In the early stages, however, nothing went according to plan for Argentina’s number 10. After just a few minutes, Messi grabbed his back left thigh several times and stretched his muscles. He was initially cut off from the game for the most part because the Croatians were already blocking the pass paths in the direction of the superstar and the support from their own teammates was quite clear.
As in the quarter-final win against the Netherlands, coach Lionel Scaloni sacrificed the third offensive player in favor of a more defensive formation. And so the favorite was 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 the great star Luka Modric from Real Madrid in midfield. Argentina’s Enzo Fernandez sent a sharp pass to striker Álvarez, who was fouled in the penalty area by goalkeeper Dominik Livakovic – and Messi converted the penalty into the top right corner of the goal.
The 2-0 just five minutes later even came after a Croatian corner kick and an even more serious chain of errors. This time Messi played the ball to Álvarez – and two Croatian defenders sabered past him in the penalty area. Their much-praised toughness and stability let the Croatians down in the crucial minutes of a World Cup semi-final. Shortly before and shortly after the break, they were lucky enough not to concede a third goal very quickly. Alexis Mac Allister (43rd) and Messi (58th) both failed because of the strongly reacting Livakovic.
The Croatians then threw almost everything their substitute bench had in attacking power into play: Mislav Orsic, Nikola Vlasic and Bruno Petkovic, the late scorer of the Brazil game, came on until the 50th minute. However, this did not make the 2018 World Cup finalist any more dangerous. Croatia remained completely harmless and unimaginative after a convincing first 20 minutes. Mario Mandzukic, the assistant coach responsible for the attackers in the squad, was no longer able to help either: the former Bayern striker saw the red card for protesting on the bench (35′).
