By: Alvin Fang
Lionel Messi of Argentina is widely considered the best soccer player in the world but has yet to win the world cup.
In 2010, he reached the quarter-finals, and in 2014 he reached the finals but got eliminated. In 2018 he got to the 16th round, And due to his age, this may be his last chance. However, after losing 2-1 against Saudi Arabia, Argentina’s next game against Mexico, they could not afford to lose.
In the first 30 minutes of the game, Mexico had a 5-3-2 formation defense which gave Argentina a hard time scoring; nobody scored until there was 63:25 remaining. Messi got the ball and with an inch of space, he shot it… Goal! This caused Mexico to become rattled and at the near end of the game, Enzo Fernandez scored to secure a 2-0 victory against Mexico.
“After the goal, we became again who we are. So, it's great -- we needed this result, we needed this euphoria in this game that we had to win,” said Messi. Everything came down to two single plays. We knew that today we had to win, that another World Cup started for us and we knew what to do. We cannot let our guard down now."
After this game, the next game against Poland, Messi would have to play well again in order to win a cup.
Source: https://www.espn.com/soccer/fifa-world-cup/story/4815180/messi-saves-argentinas-world-cup-hopes-mexico-tactics-fail