Despite his country’s defeat, Mbappé made history as just the second men’s player to ever score a hat trick in a World Cup final. The treble saw Mbappé clinch the Golden Boot at the tournament with eight goals over seven games.
Messi, who also scored in the final, recounted the incredible match in an interview with PSG TV.
“It really was a breathtaking final. It was crazy how the match went,” Messi said. “Kylian scored three incredible goals, in a final! Not being able to be champion after that was crazy.
“But he’s already won it too, and he knows what it’s like to be world champion. So yes, it was a great final for the football world. And now it’s true that it’s nice to be able to play in the same team with him, and I hope we can do great things here in Paris.”
As Messi mentioned, Mbappé had already played and scored in a World Cup final before the 2022 showpiece. In 2018, the superstar forward lifted the trophy in Russia after a 4-2 win over Croatia.
By his standards, Messi’s debut season with PSG was far below expectations. But this season Messi has returned to form, saying that he needed time to adjust to a new team and new country in the 2021-22 campaign.
“Yes, it’s true that I feel very well,” he said. “The first year, I needed a little time to adapt to Paris for different reasons, but I started this season really differently, with a lot of desire.
“I feel more comfortable with the club, with the city, with everything that Paris means. And the truth is that I am really enjoying this season. I think my whole life has been like that.
“About dedication, work, effort and wanting more every day. I’ve arrived at a new club and I want to win the title with Paris, to be able to achieve the big goals we set ourselves at the beginning of the season.”
The show will depict Messi as a child as he confronts obstacles while traveling in a video game
Sony Music Entertainment has announced it is developing an animated series featuring Lionel Messi.
The series, which is targeted toward young children and adolescents, will depict Messi as a child as he confronts obstacles while traveling throughout a video game.
Sony Music Entertainment will provide original music for the series, which will be available in English, Spanish and several other languages.
“Since I was a kid, I’ve always loved animated series and my kids are big fans of animated characters. Being able to participate in an animation project makes me happy, because it fulfills one of my dreams! I would like to thank Sony Music for joining this project and we hope that everyone will like the result, especially the girls and the boys,” Messi said in a release.
It isn’t yet known which platform the series will call home, with Sony Music’s Premium Content Division overseeing development and distribution.
“It is a privilege for Sony Music to collaborate with Lionel Messi on this project to showcase the power and lessons of sports in partnership with the greatest football player of all time and one of the greatest athletes in history,” said Fernando Cabral, executive vice president of business development, Latin-Iberia regional for Sony Music Entertainment.
“We look forward to bringing this heartwarming and humbling series to screens for audiences of all ages around the world.”
A threatening note was left after the incident in Rosario, Messi’s hometown
It might be a case of more trophies, more problems for Leo Messi.
Argentine outlet Clarín reported that in Thursday’s early hours, two gunmen fired 14 shots into Único, a grocery store in Rosario owned by the family of Messi’s wife Antonela Roccuzzo.
While no one was injured in the incident, the perpetrators were also alleged to have left a threatening note reading “Messi, we are waiting for you. [Rosario Mayor Pablo] Javkin is a narco, he is not going to take care of you,” at the scene.
Neither Messi nor his wife have offered public comment, but Javkin — who has been calling for more police enforcement amid drug-related violence in Argentina’s third-largest city — called the incident “treacherous.”
“What more important news can be generated if one wants to create chaos in the city?” Javkin said to reporters gathered in front of the store.
(Photo by STR/AFP via Getty Images)
Per ESPN, Rosario prosecutor Federico Rébola said an investigation was still in its earliest stages, and that Messi’s in-laws had never been targeted in this manner before.
There are disagreements as to how secure Rosario is at the moment. Javkin said that local and national police were not doing a good enough job, while Santa Fe provincial security minister Claudio Brilloni told reporters that the area had patrols “like every day.”
“It is a serious fact that we have to work on it not only in prevention but also in research,” added Brilloni.
Federal government security minister Aníbal Fernández was even less surprised, saying that incidents like this have been happening in Rosario “for the last 20 years.”
Messi is a frequent visitor to Rosario and owns a home in the city’s suburbs, but fortunately was nowhere near the city when the shooting took place. Paris Saint-Germain posted a photo of him at the team’s training session Thursday. However, he could be back in the country soon enough, as Argentina will host friendlies against Panama and Curacao later this month (though notably not in Rosario).
The legendary boxer was set off by a post-game video of Messi in the dressing room
Canelo Álvarez is a boxer, after all, so perhaps its not so surprising that he’s looking for a fight.
But the target of Álvarez’s fury is a bit more eye-opening: Lionel Messi, perhaps the greatest soccer player ever. What did Messi do to Álvarez? Far less than you’d imagine for the fury the Mexican boxer unleashed on Twitter in the aftermath of his country’s World Cup loss to Argentina.
Messi was front and center in Saturday’s high-profile clash at Lusail Stadium, scoring the winner his side desperately needed in a 2-0 victory over El Tri.
In the aftermath of the win Argentina celebrated wildly in their dressing room and in the midst of those celebrations, Messi was seen giving the tiniest of kicks to a Mexico jersey he apparently obtained in a post-game jersey exchange.
Seriously, this kick was nearly non-existent, and also probably accidental.
Canelo had some strong words for Messi after seeing his locker room celebration 👀
But that was enough to draw the ire of the boxing legend, who went on Twitter not just to express his displeasure but to not-so-vaguely threaten one of the greatest players of all time.
“Did you see Messi cleaning the floor with our shirt and flag????” Álvarez tweeted.
“He better pray to God that I don’t find him!!” Álvarez added in another tweet. “Just like I respect Argentina, he has to respect Mexico! I’m not talking about the country as a whole, just about the b––––––– that Messi pulled.”
Naturally, some of Messi’s former teammates rushed to his defense, including former Argentina star Sergio Aguero.
“Mr. Canelo, don’t look for excuses or problems, surely you don’t know about football and what happens in a changing room,” the retired striker tweeted.
“The shirts are always on the floor after games have finished due to sweat and then if you look properly, he makes the movement to remove his boot and accidentally hits it.”
Former Barcelona midfielder Cesc Fabregas chimed in on Twitter, saying: “You don’t know this person, nor do you know how a dressing room works or what happens after a game. ALL shirts, including the ones we use ourselves, go on the floor and are washed afterward, even more so when you are celebrating an important victory.”
There is plenty of time for other World Cup controversies to overtake this one as the most inane (and obviously this one’s in a different category than some of the more consequential stuff), but the bar has certainly been set high.
Argentina’s talisman came though when his national team, and his country, needed it the most
LUSAIL, Qatar – He’s 35 now, no longer quite the quicksilver dribbling phenomenon he once was, torturing opposing defenses, dominating some of the highest-level matches of the 21st century. He’s a more mercurial presence, drifting, watching, walking for long stretches as he waits for the optimal moments to expend his energy to change games, just as apt to do so with a pass as a shot.
But Lionel Messi is still Lionel Messi. And he can still hoist a nation of 47 million soccer-obsessed people onto his back and carry them forward on the stage they love the most.
Somewhere around 88,000 souls had the privilege of witnessing his latest such act in person at glittering, pulsating Lusail Stadium on Saturday night. That’s where Messi delivered Argentina — both the national team and the nation — from the collective agony they’ve been suffering since the shock 2-1 upset loss at the hands of Saudi Arabia.
After more than an hour of tense, fraught and frankly ugly play, due in no small part to Mexico’s defensive tactics, Messi popped up in a fleeting pocket of space in Zone 14 to clip a daisy-cutting strike past Memo Ochoa to break the deadlock and spark euphoria, or perhaps something stronger and more haunting than that, among the legions of sky blue and white-clad supporters.
“The days were very long, that’s how they felt, and we were eager to have a chance to turn the situation around. It was a critical game,” said Messi in Spanish in the postgame press conference, alluding to the opportunity to “start again” after this victory. “We knew that if we won today, we’d have another chance … It was a weight off our shoulders and peace of mind.”
How much weight? On the Argentina bench, retired legend turned assistant coach Pablo Aimar wept next to manager Lionel Scaloni, visibly wracked with emotion as the tension broke. Afterwards manager Scaloni was asked about the moment.
Few sights demonstrate the pressure being heaped on this Argentina team like the site of assistant manager Pablo Aimar breaking into tears after today's vital Messi goal to help Argentina rebound from their opening game loss to Saudi Arabia. 🇦🇷 pic.twitter.com/JejuXfMQ4u
“It’s what you live when you are here,” he said. “The feeling that you are playing something more than a football match, that’s not nice, and that is what I was feeling … the feeling we all had was relief, and of course it is difficult to make people understand that tomorrow the sun will shine whether we win or lose.”
This truly was a group-stage match with the jitters and the zero-sum vibe of a knockout match. Mexico’s Argentine manager Gerardo “Tata” Martino, said to be a favorite of Messi’s, who coached him on both the national team and FC Barcelona, went defensive with his lineup and shape, a 5-3-2 formation intended to stymie Messi & Co., and it just about worked.
“The idea was to stop their midfield and then counterattack very quickly, finding spaces. We did achieve that in some ways, but we missed the final pass,” said the former Atlanta United coach, who now faces a steep road to reach the knockout stages and the withering public criticism that inevitably comes with that.
Though it was a far cry from the vibrant, proactive El Tri sides of the past, much less Martino’s own high-octane philsophical identity, it seemed to frustrate Scaloni’s team and the mounting tension in this lavish bowl was palpable. Could Messi’s fifth World Cup really end in the group phase?
It took a formation change to a 3-5-2 by the Albiceleste and some trademark Messi magic to provide the answer they sought.
“Tata’s groups predominantly have the ball, get lots of numbers into the box, push the wingers high – it was quite the opposite, thus it was quite a closed game,” said Argentine midfielder Rodrigo De Paul. “But I think we had patience.”
Credit: Yukihito Taguchi-USA TODAY Sports
Many had predicted this would be Argentina’s tournament. It’s Messi’s last dance (most likely) and quite possibly the apex of a group of players who with last year’s Copa America title finally cured their habit of losing finals. Losing to the unfancied Saudis right out of the gate had thrown all that into question, and a country with more psychologists per capita than anywhere on earth is expert at fretting over their team.
“This brings us more calmness. After the loss I was very anxious, and wanted to reverse the situation. I really wanted the win,” said Messi, who surprised reporters by taking questions in the postgame mixed zone in addition to his role in the press conference as man of the match.
“We have confidence in our group, our team. We haven’t lost much and we can’t reverse that because of just one loss, but it wasn’t easy to come and play against Mexico, which has a great national team, one that plays well, that runs a lot. It was a unique situation because we knew that one loss would make it very hard, and for many this was the second game in a World Cup, and all of that adds up.”
(Photo by Dan Mullan/Getty Images)
Messi and Argentina may well mount the march to the final that so many expected them to make; their next chance to display their championship credentials arrives on Wednesday versus Poland. This night’s drama suggests we’ll be on the edge of our seats whatever the outcome.
“The feelings of joy and happiness that we won, of course they are there and they enjoy that in the dressing room. But that’s it, tomorrow we will prepare for the next game,” said Scaloni, whose team celebrated raucously in their Lusail locker room long after the final whistle. “We need to find that emotional balance when we win, when we lose.
“On top of having great players,” he added, “we have Leo.”
