Wednesday, December 14, 2022 – 1:04 AM
Doha, December 13, WAM/ The Argentine national team continued its successful start in the 2022 FIFA World Cup, and qualified for the final match of the tournament by defeating the Croatian national team 3-0 today, Tuesday, in the semi-finals of the tournament.
The Argentine national team will meet in the final with the winner of the other semi-final match, which brings together the Moroccan and French teams, the defending champions, tomorrow, Wednesday.
The Argentine national team ended the Croatian adventure and prevented the team, the veteran Croatian star Luka Modric and his companions, from reaching the World Cup final for the second edition in a row. Where the Croatian national team reached the final of the 2018 World Cup in Russia and lost to its French counterpart in the final.
The famous Argentine star, Lionel Messi, led his team to the World Cup final for the second time in the last 3 editions of the tournament, noting that he lost with the team the 2014 World Cup final in Brazil.
The match witnessed a new goal for Messi and two goals for his teammate Julian Alvarez, raising Messi to 5 goals in the tournament and sharing the top scorer list with Frenchman Kylian Mbappe, while Alvarez shares second place in the list with the other Frenchman Olivier Giroud, with 4 goals each.
And with the kick-off in the match, Messi equalized a record that had stood for many years, which is the number of matches played by any player in the history of his participation in the World Cup, as Messi played today his 25th match in the World Cup equally with German legend Lothar Matthaus.
Messi can be alone with the record if he participates with his country in the next match for him in the tournament.
Luka Modric, 37, also became the captain of the Croatian national team, the oldest player in the history of the World Cup to start 6 matches in one copy in the starting line-up of his team.
After caution dominated the performance of the two teams in the first 10 minutes of the match, each of them began quietly searching for an opportunity to threaten the opponent’s goal, but without either of them posing a great danger.
In the 32nd minute, the referee awarded a penalty kick to the Argentine national team, following a foul by Croatian goalkeeper Dominic Levakovic against Julian Alvarez.
Messi hit the penalty kick in the 34th minute, scoring the goal for the Argentine national team, to make Messi the historic scorer for his country in the World Cup tournaments, with 11 goals so far, surpassing former star Gabriel Batistuta.
And just five minutes later, Julian Alvarez launched the ball until he reached the Croatian penalty area and hit the ball brilliantly into the net of Levakovic, scoring the second goal for the Argentine national team, to end Messi and his companions in the first half in their favor with two clean goals.
Despite the changes that Zlatko Dalic made to his team in the second half, the Argentine national team continued its supremacy, and Alvarez translated this into a second goal for him and a third for the team in the 69th minute.
Mustafa Badr Al-Din / Ahmed Zahran