Argentina captain Lionel Messi was annoyed after he missed the penalty against Poland on Wednesday night at Stadium 974 – Ras Abu Aboud. La Albiceleste earned a penalty in the 39th minute but Messi was denied by Poland keeper Wojciech Szczesny, who made a fine save to keep it 0-0.
However, Argentina took a lead right after the first half as Alexis Mac Allister scored in the 46th minute. Julian Alvarez then scored in the 67th minute to confirm Argentina’s place in the knockout stage.
Messi revealed that his team was motivated more after he made the mistake and gave credit to the players for delivering under pressure.
“I’m annoyed that I have missed the penalty,” Messi said. “But the team came out stronger after my mistake.
“The team was convinced that we were going to win, it was a matter of scoring the first goal. After that, the rest of the game was played the way we wanted.”
The talisman added that they had to come up with a collective effort in the must-win match and they were able to deliver the goods.
“We said it from the beginning, the player who has to come in knows what he has to do and is always fully prepared,” Messi said. “The strength of this group is the unity and everyone answered the call.”
Meanwhile, Argentina will face Australia on Saturday and the team’s boss Lionel Scaloni doesn’t understand the tight schedule of his team.
“It’s now nearly 2 a.m. on Thursday morning and we have to play again on Saturday,” Scaloni said. “I don’t understand this, but we just have to prepare as best we can.”
Argentina’s World Cup campaign had started on a bad note as they had suffered a shocking loss against Saudi Arabia in their tournament’s opener. However, Messi feels they learned a lot after that defeat.
“We’ve learned a lot after we started [the World Cup] with a defeat,” Messi said. “It was a bad start, everyone was disappointed and worried.
“Let’s go calmly, we need to take that approach. Hopefully, we can continue playing like we did today and show our best.”
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