“We can’t let our guard down now,” Lionel Messi told reporters after their victory over Mexico. said. “All our matches are now finals. We can’t mess it up,” he added.
“We lived with discomfort and kept the opening game defeat in our minds,” added the PSG striker.
Messi went on to add: “The days were very long” after the 1-2 defeat to Saudi Arabia.
“We were eager to get the chance to turn the situation around and luckily we won,” said Messi.
Argentina are second in Group C ahead of their final match against number one Poland on Wednesday and may need to win it to advance.
It was Messi’s eighth World Cup goal, the same number scored in the tournament by rivals Cristiano Ronaldo and also Diego Maradona, the great Argentine to whom he is so often compared.
8 – Lionel Messi has now scored as many World Cup goals as Diego Maradona (8), with only Gabriel Batistuta (10) scoring more for Argentina during the tournament. Breakthrough. pic.twitter.com/cXIcjGbd3p
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) November 26, 2022
Lionel Messi is third in the highest number of goals in internationals with 92 goals, Maradona with 34 goals and Cristiano leads the list with 118 goals.
For some, Messi needs to win the World Cup – the one major title still missing from his collection – to join Pelé and Maradona as the greatest footballers ever. Thanks to this victory, it could still happen.
Earlier in the group, Poland beat Saudi Arabia 2-0. Poland’s all-time highest goalscorer, Robert Lewandowski, registered his first goal at the World Cup.