Magical Lionel Messi has Mexico dancing to his timeless tune in defiant World Cup performance

There are things that are meant to happen. Things that are not meant to happen. How could Lionel Messi’s World Cup be over after just two rounds of group matches? That would not have been right and yet it was possible. Everything hung in the balance for more than an hour and then Messi seized the moment and scored a fine goal. Everything changed.

He hadn’t done much in the game and though Argentina had a lot of possession, they hadn’t created one clear chance. Not any kind of chance. Messi himself had spent the first half on the periphery of the game, seldom getting the ball and rarely doing anything with it. The pattern began to change as Mexico retreated deeper into their own half at the beginning of the second period, settling to play their game on the counterattack.

The match-changing moment came almost out of nothing, another seemingly unthreatening Argentina attack, the ball going to Angel Di Maria wide on the right. Di Maria had been one of his team’s better performers and he saw Messi standing just outside the penalty area and in a little space.

The pass was accurate and Messi instinctively knew there was a chance. Nudging the ball forward, he then drove it low into corner of the goal. Guillermo Ochoa saw it fly through a forest of legs and dived away to his left. There was no chance of him making the save. This was Messi and his shot was too finely struck for the Mexico goalkeeper.

So early in the tournament and yet so much resting on the outcome. The idea that Lionel Messi and the Argentina team that he leads could be out of the hunt after two games concentrated minds, hardened resolves. You saw it in the fixed stares of the players as they walked on to the pitch.

Each Argentina face betrayed the strain of the occasion. Players get told before they leave for a World Cup that they must enjoy it. How was that possible for the men in the light blue shirts? After losing to Saudi Arabia, a result that was more disaster than defeat, a second loss would have done for them, without question.

Imagine you could come into the tournament with a 36-match unbeaten run, as Copa America champions and then compelled to remain at the World Cup for a fixture that for them would have no meaning. Don’t think that Argentina’s players had not considered the darkest possibilities.

They knew the stakes. How could they not rise to the occasion on the evening that Messi equalled Diego Maradona’s record of 21 games at the World Cup? The day before the game had been the second anniversary of Maradona’s death and the manager Lionel Scaloni had talked about the team being inspired by the memory of their great idol.

The magnificent Lusail Stadium, which will host the final, was packed at one end with the green shirts of Mexico and at the other by the striped light blue and white of Argentina. In every other section of the stadium, green and light blue shirts mixed. These are perhaps the two best supported teams at this tournament and it made for a thunderous atmosphere.

The effect on the players was palpable. They committed to challenges as if the result of the game depended upon each one. Sensing that it was coming, Mexico were ready for their rivals’ intensity and were determined to give back what they were receiving. Early in the game, Mexico’s attacker Alexis Vega stretched out his left arm to fend off Gonzalo Montiel’s tackle and caught his opponent in the neck.

Montiel went down, tempers became frayed and every 50-50 challenge saw two players accelerating into the collision. It wasn’t pretty, nor creative but with so much riding on the result, the first-half stalemate wasn’t a surprise. So there were many stoppages and no real chance for either team to score, though the half did end with Vega’s fine effort forcing Emiliano Martinez into a decent save.

Perhaps Mexico were deceived by how comfortably they had dealt with Argentina through that opening half because they were a different, less aggressive team after the break. They retreated into their own half and that led to waves of Argentina attacks. Still, the Mexico centre backs Cesar Montes and Hector Moreno were never that troubled and a draw would have suited Gerardo Martino’s team.

It was Messi’s eighth goal at the World Cup, which was appropriate because that’s exactly how many Maradona scored in his 21 World Cup games. Once that was scored, the game changed as Mexico pushed forward in search of a goal, but only succeeded in making themselves more vulnerable to conceding a second.

That’s what happened in the 87th minute when Enzo Fernandez cut in from the left and hit a terrific shot into the roof of the net. That goal was celebrated as much as Messi’s for it clinched the victory that gives the team every chance of progressing into the knockout phase of matches.

In the moment of Messi’s brilliance, the memory of that terrible loss to Saudi Arabia receded. They play Poland on Wednesday evening at Stadium 974 and then, they can banish the memory of that shock defeat.

– The Sunday Times

Originally published as Magical Lionel Messi has Mexico dancing to his timeless tune in defiant World Cup performance