The 2022 World Cup semifinals will bring together Argentina vs Croatia.
The match which was held on Wednesday (14/12/2022) at Lusail Stadium ended for Argentina to win with a score of 3-0.
Argentina’s winning goal was scored by Lionel Messi and two goals by Julian Alvarez.
This victory makes Argentina qualify for the 2022 World Cup final and will face either France or Morocco.
In the first half Croatia had its first chance in the 16th minute through Dejan Lovren’s header.
Unfortunately, his header still deviated from Emiliano Martinez’s goal.
While Argentina’s first chance came in the 25th minute through a kick from outside the penalty box Enzo Fenrandez.
Unfortunately, his shot was easily secured by Dominik Livakovic.
Argentina has a great chance to open the scoring after getting a penalty a minute later. Julian Alvarez, who received a through ball by Rodrigo de Paul from halfway, he then managed to flick the ball past Livakovic.
In the 34th minute, Argentina got a penalty after Julian Alvarez was fouled by Livakovic in the forbidden box.
Lionel Messi, who advanced as the penalty taker, managed to do his job well and changed the score to 1-0 for Argentina’s advantage.
Not long after that, Argentina again added to the lead in the 39th minute through Julian Alvarez.
The first half ended in favor of Argentina with a score of 2-0.
In the second half Croatia tried to score against Argentina.
Several times Croatian players made crosses to the Argentinian defense, but the Argentinian players were able to counter them.
Argentina actually managed to add another goal in the 69th minute through Julian Alvarez.
Julian Alvarez was able to score after receiving feedback from Lionel Messi.
The rest of the second half went Croatia still unable to reduce the position.
The 3-0 score ended until the match was over.
With this result Argentina qualified for the 2022 World Cup finals.
Meanwhile, Croatia will compete again for the third place.
Lionel Messi was able to score one goal from the penalty spot during Argentina’s 3-0 win against Croatia in the 2022 World Cup semifinals.
With this additional goal, Lionel Messi is currently Argentina’s top scorer in the World Cup finals with 11 goals.
Lionel Messi was able to beat the goal record previously held by Gabriel Batistuta, namely by scoring 10 goals.
At that time Gabriel Batistuta was able to score 10 goals for the Argentina national team in the 1994, 1998 and 2002 World Cups.
Lionel Messi’s 11 goals also make him currently the sixth-highest scorer in World Cup history alongside Sandor Kocsis and Jurgen Klinsmann.
Lionel Messi is the oldest player to score five goals in one World Cup title.
Apart from that, Messi is also currently on par with his PSG team-mate Kylian Mbappe in the race for the Golden Shoe.
In the semifinal match against Croatia, Lionel Messi also equaled Germany’s Lothar Matthaus’ record for the most appearances at the World Cup with 25 times.
But Messi has the chance to surpass that record when he plays in the 2022 World Cup final on Sunday.
Messi is Argentina’s all-time leading scorer with 94 goals in 169 appearances for the national team since making his debut in 2005.
