After facing a shocking defeat against Saudi Arabia in their opening match, Argentina have revived themselves in this tournament as they have reached the quarterfinals of the FIFA 2022 world cup after scoring a 2-1 victory over Australia in their Round of 16 match.
In his 1000th career match, Messi scored his third goal of this tournament to move up the ranks as the joint top goal scorer of FIFA 2022 along the likes of Mbappe, Rashford, and Gakpo. The goal was also the 789th goal of his illustrious career.
Australia dominated the early minutes of the first half sending crisp passes around, but Argentina eventually got into it. Enzo Fernandez, Alejandro Gomez, and Alvarez attempted to create opportunities for scoring, but were unable to break through the resolute Australian defense. Gomez also found an early opportunity when he fired a shot that went wide, cutting inside from the left. Messi also struggled to get something out of the early exchanges.
Australia had a really promising opportunity to score their opening goal through a corner kick near the half hour mark. The corner kick swung into the box and Harry Souttar jumped high to head down the ball, but the shot lacked power.
The Argentinians were now well dominating the game as they maintained maximum ball possession and made several attempts to score, until the 35th minute when Captain Messi netted in the opening goal of the match for his team. Messi shot a sublime and well-controlled strike into the bottom corner to give Argentina the early lead, scoring his 94th international goal in the process. He also surpassed the legendary Diego Maradona to become the highest goal scorer for Argentina in World Cups with 8 goals.
The first half eventually came to an end with Argentina leading 1-0 after a sweet and precious opening goal by the Captain. Yet another proof that a team can never take it easy when Messi is inside the box with the ball. The little man is a big time scorer and too hard to handle because of his pace and precision.
The second half began with Argentina kicking things off and Messi and his boys went all in, hunting for more goals. They eventually were able to double their lead with the second goal in the 57th minute when Rodrigo De Paul passed the ball to Ryan, who sent a backpass to Alvarez, who turned and shot the ball into the Australian goal.
Australia tried to cope up with the damage inflicted by Argentina and unleashed a flurry of attacks and eventually pulled a goal in during the 77th minute when substitute Craig Goodwin fired a powerful shot at the Argentinian goal that took a huge deflection off Fernandez and flew past the goalie into the net. An unfortunate own goal that allowed the Aussies to narrow the gap.
Australia now tried to push hard to get the equalizer and nearly scored again a few minutes later, when Aziz Behich sprinted into the Argentinian box to shoot but he was brilliantly tackled by Lisandro Martinez. As the match approached the closing minutes, Messi tried to get the third goal for his team but fired it wide. Australia also tried to create a few opportunities, but they didn’t convert as the referee blew the whistle to call the match 2-1 in Argentina’s favor, sending them through to the quarterfinals for a date with the Netherlands.
To follow more such high-octane actions, controversies, news, and updates from the ongoing FIFA World Cup 2022, stay tuned with H3bet.com as we bring all the details to you!