By Gopal Ram Tripathi

Last week, Messi gave a thundering performance against Algeria and today, he was far from getting settled in. Argentina entered their second match of the group stage and this time they took on Austria in Arlington, Texas. Argentina cruised past Austria and now have cemented their position in the Round of 32s.

With Messi breaking Germany’s Miroslav Klose’s record goal of 16 and extending the record to 18 goals. Messi has cemented himself as the Greatest Goal Scorer of the World Cup Tournament.

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Tough Start for the Argentina

Though Argentina won at the end, it surely wasn’t an easy match for the “Muchachos”. Argentina struggled to find an opening in the early phase of the match until Austria handed them over with a penalty, Argentina’s Lautaro Martinez was fouled when Austria’s Schlager and Posch slid for a defense but eventually caught Martinez in the middle. Penalty in the favor of Argentina.

Messi was the marksman for the team. But he missed it. This made Messi the player with the most missed penalties in the World Cup tournament (3 Penalties out of 7). Now, that’s a record to remember but something was written in the stars for Messi. Austria tucked in with defensive control over the Argentines.

Argentina looked for an opening with Messi creating a space for himself, Medina found Messi in a classic Alba-ish pass and just like that after missing the penalty Messi’s left foot decided to amaze Austria’s skipper, and Argentina opened up the scoresheet. 

Lionel Messi’s goal, broke the all time scoring record in the tournament. Messi said ‘No’ to penalties instead decided to curl the ball in for an open goal. 

Messi Seals the Deal In The End

Argentina looked confident but it wasn’t the end, Argentina missed many open chances and displaced a few passes to give Austria a sense of hope. Martinez denied the Austrian attack. But in due course Argentina began charging upon them, they didn’t want to settle with a single goal of the scoreline that could become a reason for the Austrians to capitalize.

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Austria was unable to find an opening and that allowed Argentina to step ahead. Scaloni made changes with Julian Alvarez coming on for Lautaro Martinez, Nico Gonzalez for Almada and Otamendi for Romero that came in handy in the last minutes for Argentina. 

In the final minutes of the game, a launched ball finds Messi and swifts past the defence from his wing side and finds Alvarez lurking right outside the box who takes a shot but gets deflected. The ball finds Messi and he drifts off by faking a shot and after a double shot attempt, Messi finally seals a victory with a final blow against the Austrians. 

Prime Messi is Back!

It has been confirmed that Lionel Messi is back with his prime form, and is slowly looking for a 4th World Title for his country. With Argentina beating Austria with a 2-0 scoreline, they enter the knockout stage. Messi tied a record of scoring in 6 consecutive games with France’s Fontaine (1958) and Brazil’s Jairzinho (1970) sharing the feat.

Names like Mbappe and Kane would look forward to chasing Messi for the Golden Boot but for now Messi is in a galaxy of his own. Whenever we say that Messi has done everything in his career he just comes back with something more, and today he has brought something on the table in front of the world.   

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