Lionel Messi single-handedly dragged his Argentina team into next year’s World Cup
- 7 years ago
A nation exploded with relief on Tuesday as Lionel Messi single-handedly dragged his Argentina team into next year’s World Cup finals with a spellbinding hat-trick in Quito.
“Messi is E.T. He’s from another planet. He’s not from this world,” Marco Mouras, a 28-year-old Brazilian said in a crowded Buenos Aires bar as Argentinians around him went wild, beer and pizza spilling onto the floor.
Messi gave the world a masterclass of what it would be missing if he didn’t go to Russia 2018, a distinct possibility when Argentina went a goal down inside the first minute of a match they had to win.
A graveyard silence descended on bars, restaurants and homes when Ecuador’s Romario Ibarra struck in the first minute of the game, casting a pall of gloom across Argentina as he scored.
It was proof for the doomsayers that this team was a lost cause. Argentinians had suffered too much during a lacklustre qualification series and this was the last straw.
But Messi burst through the gloom to equalize and then soon scored again to give Argentina the lead.
“Messi is E.T. He’s from another planet. He’s not from this world,” Marco Mouras, a 28-year-old Brazilian said in a crowded Buenos Aires bar as Argentinians around him went wild, beer and pizza spilling onto the floor.
Messi gave the world a masterclass of what it would be missing if he didn’t go to Russia 2018, a distinct possibility when Argentina went a goal down inside the first minute of a match they had to win.
A graveyard silence descended on bars, restaurants and homes when Ecuador’s Romario Ibarra struck in the first minute of the game, casting a pall of gloom across Argentina as he scored.
It was proof for the doomsayers that this team was a lost cause. Argentinians had suffered too much during a lacklustre qualification series and this was the last straw.
But Messi burst through the gloom to equalize and then soon scored again to give Argentina the lead.