Missed penalty, Messi responds to "anger" after the game

The Paper reporter Pu Yaolei

● In the final round of the World Cup group stage, Argentina beat Poland 2-0 to qualify as the top of Group C, Poland finished second in the group, and Mexico, who beat Saudi Arabia 2-1, was unfortunately out

●In the two matches of Group D on the same day, substitute France lost 0-1 to Tunisia and Australia beat Denmark 1-0, and France joined Australia to advance

●World Cup 1/8 Final Confirmed (Beijing time): December 3, 23 o'clock Netherlands VS United States; December 4, 3 o'clock Argentina vs Australia; December 4, 23:00 France vs Poland; 5 Dec 3pm England vs Senegal

After Messi's thrill of missing a penalty, Argentina managed to reach the round of 16 by relying on the performance of young people.

It's time to help Messi

For Argentina, the match is still a life-and-death battle to qualify or not – only by winning can the team secure promotion.

The process of the game also made the mood of Argentine fans ups and downs enough.

Facing Poland, which was in the inferior position overall, Argentina controlled the situation without suspense, but the goal was delayed...

In the first half alone, Argentina had 14 shots on goal, Poland had only one, but thanks to seven brave saves from goalkeeper Szczesny, Poland managed to keep the goal intact.

The most thrilling was Argentina's penalty opportunity in the 39th minute - Messi's penalty was saved by Szczesny, and he missed the perfect opportunity to score.

As a result, Messi took two penalties in three non-penalty shootouts in the World Cup, tied with Ghana's Gian for the most penalty kicks in the World Cup.

And Szczesny has already saved two penalties in this World Cup, the first being a penalty from Saudi Arabia in the last round.

Fortunately, after missing a chance, Argentina's efforts paid off in the second half. In the 47th and 68th minutes, 24-year-old McAllister and 22-year-old Alvarez scored goals to give Argentina a 2-0 lead.

The final statistics are also fixed - Argentina leads 24-3 in the number of shots on goal and 13-0 in the number of shots on target, which can be called a "crushing game".

Although he failed to score the goal himself, Messi's role on the field cannot be ignored. He made six shots on goal in this game, including four on target, created five chances and had a pass success rate of 83.8%.

In addition, this match also has special significance for Messi: he has increased his World Cup games to 22, surpassing Maradona as the most in team history, where he has a total of 8 goals and 6 assists, and in a total of 5 World Cup trips, he has qualified with Argentina in the group.

This is the 999th game of Messi's career, and he will reach his thousand-game milestone in the quarter-final against Australia.

Messi responded: I'm angry with my performance

In an interview after the game, Messi admitted that he was "angry".

"I was angry with the penalty but after I made a mistake the team got stronger. We know that once we score the first goal, the game changes. ”

"We were a lot more at ease with the last win and we came on with the conviction that we had to win. We have to stay calm and play the game one by one. ”

Looking ahead to the upcoming quarter-finals against Australia, Messi is still very cautious: "The next phase of new games is about to start, hopefully we can keep it where we are today. ”

'The game against Australia is going to be very tough, any team can win, it's an equal contest and we have to prepare at our best, as we always do.'

Life hangs in the balance, almost more than a yellow card

Despite having the "striker" Lewandowski, the Polish team has suffered from ups and downs, and even narrowly squandered their excellent qualifying situation.

Poland, with four points from two rounds, briefly topped the group, but in the third round, Mexico led 2-0 in the same group match against Saudi Arabia. If Mexico wins 2-0, Mexico will also have four points, the same as Poland.

If Poland also loses 2-0, Poland and Mexico will have a draw on goal difference, goals, points matched, goal difference and goals scored, and Poland will qualify for second place in the group with a red and yellow card advantage.

But if Mexico scores one more goal, or Poland concedes one more goal, that situation will be broken, and Poland will be squeezed into third place in the group on goal difference and eliminated.

Therefore, every time the Argentine team came close to breaking the goal, thousands of Polish fans broke out in a cold sweat... Fortunately, the Mexican team did not continue to score, but was scored by the Saudi team, and finally beat Saudi Arabia 2-1, and the Polish team was relieved and successfully qualified.

After the loss, the Saudi players who were out of the group shed painful tears... But they have left a timeless classic for the World Cup, and the 2-1 win over Argentina in the first round of the group stage is enough to go down in football history.

Mexico faces embarrassment – the last time they were out of the World Cup group stage was in 1978, and since the 1994 World Cup, Mexico has qualified for seven consecutive World Cup group stages, but also stopped the round of 16 seven times in a row.

However, for Lewandowski and the Polish team, who have successfully "renewed", perhaps the time to say goodbye comes a little later. In the knockout rounds, they will face France, one of the favourites to win the title, and the outlook is not optimistic.

France "rotten", Australia advanced

In the other two matches of the same matchday, France lost 1-0 to Tunisia and Australia beat Denmark 1-0, and France and Australia advanced to the top two places in the group.

For the French team, this is a completely capitalized "rotten" game, because they have already sealed their qualifying spots early after two consecutive wins in the first two rounds, so this game can safely let the team rotate and adjust.

Sure enough, the French team started with a large-scale rotation of 9 people, sending a non-main lineup, which meant to treat the game as a training match, and the substitutes were also able to "train with the game" to warm up.

As a result, the substitutes did not surprise the French fans and did not have much bright spots in front of the all-out Tunisia. In the 58th minute, Hazri scored a low shot to give Tunisia the lead, and this goal became the only goal of the match.

In the last half hour of the game, the French team successively replaced Mbappe, Griezmann and other main players, but it was clear that the team did not intend to do their best to win. Griezmann equalised in the 98th minute, but the goal was disallowed for offside.

In the end, Tunisia won a 1-0 victory – the first time France had lost the group stage of the World Cup since 2010 – and thanks to the massive rotation of the match, France already had 24 players in the World Cup, a record for the tournament.

In the other match, Australia took Leckie's brilliant raid to get rid of the shot and beat Eriksen's Denmark 1-0, which earned six points and pushed Tunisia with four points to advance.

For Australian fans, the result came as a surprise – it was their first win in a single World Cup and the second time in the team's history that they had qualified for the knockout stages of the World Cup since the 2006 World Cup.

In the 2006 World Cup, they were beaten by the great Italian left-back in the quarterfinals, and if they want to set a new World Cup best, they need to cross Argentina in the knockout round.

Source: The Paper