Messi in the second final of his career: Argentina beats Croatia in World Cup semi-final Argentina reaches World Cup final 14.12.2022, 00:20

Argentina – Croatia – 3: 0

A battle, a fire was expected from the match of the national teams of Argentina and Croatia in the semi-finals. Someone was hoping for good football, but most agreed it would be a bone-to-bone battle with minimal scoring chances and wear and tear.

In this World Cup, Lionel Messi goes to a dream and also takes all of Argentina to him, but the stats of the player who won the Golden Ball six times against Croatia and its leader, Luka Modric, were very good.

Messi and Argentina played against Croatia twice and lost both in the long-running friendly match (2:3) and in the World Cup group stage in Russia, with a score of 0:3 and a goal from Modric off the pitch. Box. Both teams then advanced to the playoffs, but the Europeans outperformed, reaching the finals.

They had the chance to repeat their best result in history in Qatar and Zlatko Dalic’s men started the match more interesting than their opponents. Although football as a whole was not so bright, it was the Croatian national team that looked more interesting and showed more approach in the first half hour of the match.

In the 25th minute, Enzo Fernandez controlled Dominik Livakovic from a distance, while the goalkeeper rang the “checker” bell as the ball bounced off the grass.

However, in the 32nd minute of the match, he easily opened the Croatian defense with a simple transfer, jumped one-on-one with Julian Alvarez Livakovic, threw the ball over the goalkeeper and was knocked down by him.

Dejan Lovren managed to catch the ball bouncing towards the goal and threw it aside, then Daniele Orsato, who was waiting for the episode to end, calmly pointed to the point and showed the goalkeeper and then the goalkeeper a yellow card. Discussing Mateo Kovacic.

Of course, Lionel Messi approached the ball and filled a nine to his right with the ball. And although the Croatian goalkeeper predicted the direction of the blow, he had no chance to get there.

Argentina took the lead and the opponent was stunned for literally five minutes, and at the end of this episode the Croats’ corner turned into a disaster for them. Argentina’s attack came out fast, but Alvarez still pushed the opponent’s defense very easily, smashing through Yuranovich and Sosa passing Livakovic at close range and hitting the ball.

But after that, the Dalic team somehow recovered, started playing and even created a moment at the end of the first half, hinting at the possibility of a comeback in the second half. After all, Argentina lost a two-goal lead against the Netherlands in the quarter-finals, while Croatia recovered against Brazil in overtime on the same stage…

After the break, Mislav Orsic and Nikola Vlasic immediately took the field, and a little later Bruno Petkovic, but all this did not help. In the 58th minute, Messi was saved by Livakovic, almost making the score a big one.

True, five minutes later Dejan Lovren came very close to the goal after an error by Emiliano Martinez, but Otamendi was hit in the chest, after which the goalkeeper corrected himself and took the ball.

It all finally became clear in the 69th minute when Messi sarcastically easily promoted Yoshko Guardiola from Manchester City, who was so eager to sign his namesake. As a result, the Albiseleste captain rolled into Alvarez from the front of the penalty area and only had a hit.

Everything became clear. In the remaining time, Dalic removed Modric, who had not yet battled for bronze in the last game, and Lionel Scaloni released Paulo Dybala, who had not taken a single minute in the tournament before.

Dybala could have even scored in the end, the Croats also had half-time moments, but the audience did not see any more goals.

Lionel Messi will now play in the World Cup final for the second time. In 2010 the team lost in overtime to Germany (0:1), now they have to play against France or Morocco, who will test their strength tomorrow.