Earlier than the match, the enormous display at Dallas Stadium confirmed all 16 of Lionel Messi’s earlier World Cup targets one after the other. The group cheered every one. By the point the final appeared, the stadium was already his. Two extra adopted. They all the time do.
Within the ninth minute, Messi walked as much as a penalty spot and missed. Not by a lot. He tried to curve it towards the publish. Schlager dived, guessed proper, however the ball handed a couple of centimetres extensive with out him needing to the touch it. Messi coated his face with each palms, seemed up on the Texas sky, and walked again. An Austrian fan within the stand had painted MESSI WHO? on his abdomen. It felt, briefly, like an affordable query.
Twenty-nine minutes later he answered it.
Almada launched Medina down the left. Medina lower the ball again. Almada, studying one thing solely he and Messi knew, let it run via with out touching it. And Messi, who had been strolling — as he does, as he all the time does, conserving one thing the remainder of us can not identify — immediately was not strolling. He broke into the field at full velocity, arrived on the close to publish earlier than any Austrian defender may react, and positioned the ball to the proper of Alexander Schlager along with his left foot. First time. Backside nook. Seventeen World Cup targets. Thirty seconds. One contact. Miroslav Klose’s file, held since a July night time in Belo Horizonte in 2014, was gone.
The penalty miss made the objective crucial. With out the ninth minute, the thirty eighth minute is simply one other Messi objective. With it, the story has a form: the miss, the resistance, the wait, after which the second arriving not from the penalty spot however from open play, from intuition, from a run that started in his personal half and ended on the close to publish.
Austria had earned their reprieve and used it nicely. It was Messi’s third missed penalty at a World Cup. They knew it, and pressed. Ralf Rangnick’s aspect pushed David Alaba ahead from defence and located harmful areas via Marcel Sabitzer and Konrad Laimer. Earlier than the primary objective, Alaba had blocked a Messi shot nearly on the road. Their xG at half time was 0.24, towards Argentina’s 1.05. The strain was actual. The risk was not.
The second half was purposeful relatively than dramatic. Argentina sat deep when wanted, urgent after they noticed the possibility. Scaloni used his bench methodically — Romero off at 57, Lautaro and Almada changed by Alvarez and Gonzalez at 64. Rangnick threw the whole lot at it: a triple substitution at 67, Arnautovic on to chase the equaliser, Chukwuemeka launched at 85. Austria’s greatest probability fell to Gregoritsch — Sabitzer crossing from the left, the striker heading over underneath strain from Medina — but it surely got here earlier than Rangnick’s adjustments, not after. Arnautovic by no means obtained his second.
Then, within the fifth minute of stoppage time, a stray ball fell to Messi on the proper flank from a failed Austrian counter. He sprayed it left to Alvarez, whose shot Schlager saved. The ball got here again to Messi. First effort blocked. Second shot pushed into the centre of the objective. 2-0. Eighteen World Cup targets. Two away from Klose. Each single Argentina objective at this match, all 5 of them, scored by one man.
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He even had time to curve a free kick simply extensive looking for a 3rd. That may have been one thing else.
Together with his first objective Messi had joined Simply Fontaine and Jairzinho as the one gamers to attain in six consecutive World Cup matches. Together with his second he merely stored going.
Earlier than the match, requested in regards to the file he had held for twelve years, Miroslav Klose had mentioned solely that it was all the time going to fall to somebody, and that he was glad, if it needed to be anybody, that it is likely to be Messi. The file fell within the thirty eighth minute. Then Messi scored once more within the ninety fifth. Klose had been beneficiant about it prematurely.
Messi hugged his teammates. Then he hugged the opposition. Argentina are via to the knockout rounds. Their 38-year-old captain has 18 World Cup targets, remains to be strolling, nonetheless conserving, nonetheless discovering a method.