- Messi: ‘We were confident we would make it’
- Croatia angry about award of penalty for first goal
Lionel Messi urged Argentina to overcome one last hurdle after they reached the World Cup final by defeating Croatia 3-0 on Tuesday night.
Messi was in inspired form in front of an adoring audience at the Lusail Stadium, opening the scoring with a penalty and making two goals for Julián Álvarez. The 35-year-old’s performance led to his manager, Lionel Scaloni, calling him the greatest player of all time and opened up the prospect of Argentina, who had been in danger of an early exit after losing against Saudi Arabia in their opening game in Qatar, finally seeing their star player win the World Cup.
