Julian Alvarez and Lionel Messi starred for Argentina as they swept past Croatia to seal a place in the World Cup final.
Messi opened the scoring from the spot after Alvarez was fouled by the Croatia goalkeeper Dominik Livakovic. Then Alvarez bundled his way through a scrambling Croatia defence to make it two before the break, and the two players combined for a brilliant third goal in the 69th minute.
They will face the winner of tomorrow’s semi-final between France and Morocco on Sunday at the Lusail Stadium.
Liam Tharme, Dermot Corrigan and Maram AlBaharna analyse the key talking points from Argentina’s comprehensive victory…
Messi toys with Gvardiol
Yet again Messi showed the character and leadership that Argentina needed to get the job done.
The 35-year-old showed enough of his ‘hot’ side against the Netherlands in the quarter-finals. Tonight was more about cool efficiency as he took on Croatia’s strongest defender Josko Gvardiol and gave one of the world’s outstanding young centre-backs a real chasing.
Apparently troubled by an adductor muscle problem, Messi was slow to get into the game. But his movement kept Gvardiol occupied as his younger team-mates Enzo Fernandez and Alvarez opened up Croatia for the penalty, which was the game’s key moment. Messi slammed an unstoppable spot kick into the roof of the net to make it 1-0.
