Lionel Messi was on the verge of single-handedly leading Argentina into the semi-finals of the Fifa world cup in Qatar until the 83rd minute of the game against the Netherlands. The Argentine captain produced one of the most beautiful passes in football history, which was then converted into a goal by Nahuel Molina in the 35th minute of the first half. After Lautaro Martinez was fouled just on the edge of D box, the PSG star scored a perfect penalty in the 73rd minute, making it a 2-0 lead for the South American team. Immediately, he went in front of the Dutch coach Louis Van Gaal to celebrate the goal.
In response, the losing Dutch side’s coach Louis Van Gaal introduced two of the tallest strikers, Luke de Jong and Wout Weghorst. As expected by the manager, Weghorst ended up scoring a brace in 83 and 101 minutes of the match. In the intense match, the referee booked almost every player on the field. As neither of the sides could manage to score a goal in the extra time, they went into the penalty. Emiliano Martinez made two crucial saves for Argentina thereby leading his team into the semi-finals.
GOAL on Twitter: “Lionel Messi can’t stop smiling 🥲 https://t.co/i1c7GuaLWU” / Twitter
After the referee blew the last whistle, there was some altercation between Leonel Messi and Van Gaal. Following the Argentina-Netherlands match, there were a flurry of comments and posts on the media. Piers Morgan, a huge fan of Ronaldo and one of the fiercest critiques of Messi twitted several times throughout the match and even until days after the game was over.
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”><p lang=”et” dir=”ltr”>Missi.</p>— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) <a href=”https://twitter.com/piersmorgan/status/1601331397809295360?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>December 9, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>
A Dutch player Marten de Roon twitted: “When I was a kid I heard my dad talk about the nightmare of Argentina. The World Cup back in ‘78. In my time as a footballer, Messi was the dream of every player. Today, I played against the dream that became a nightmare. Congrats to Argentina, but I’m so damn proud of this squad.”
Former German footballer Philipp Lahm also twitted: “Argentina is my favorite for this World Cup. In 2014 his teammates seemed to be waiting for Lionel Messi to solve everything on his own against us – in 2022 they play for him.”