Argentina totally intoxicated
Messi crowns world champion party with 800 hits
03/24/2023 07:27
World champions Argentina win their first international match after the World Cup in Qatar. The team led by superstar Lionel Messi confidently prevailed against Panama in their euphoric homeland. Messi scores the 800th goal of his professional career in front of around 83,000 spectators.
At the end of a gigantic World Cup party, Argentina’s soccer superstar Lionel Messi sent the monumental stadium of Buenos Aires into ecstasy with his 800th career goal and thus gave the new world champion a 2-0 win in the first game after the triumph in Qatar (0 :0) against a B-Team from Panama. The 83,196 fans caused goosebumps with their singing and went wild after their idol’s ingenious free-kick goal.
Before kick-off, tens of thousands of fans celebrated the team. When tango singer Ariel Ardit sang Argentina’s national anthem before kick-off, Messi and goalkeeper Emiliano Martínez were moved to tears. The other players also smiled and trembled with happiness. On Tuesday next week Argentina will play another friendly against Curaçao in Santiago del Estero (in the northwest of the country). It should be a second gigantic party.
Even before his anniversary goal in the 89th minute, two free kicks by the seven-time world footballer hit the woodwork, with the second attempt then rebounding at the feet of Thiago Almada (Atlanta United), and he scored the ball for the first goal (78th) in the new Jersey with the third World Cup star on the chest in the net. Against the defensive bar of the offensively weak guests, the party-weary world champions almost only had chances from a distance.
Exactly 95 days after the dramatic 4-2 penalty shoot-out against France and the roller coaster ride at 3-3 in the 120 minutes before, Messi had tears in his eyes again. During the World Cup hit “Muchachos” or the national anthem, none of the fans spared their vocal chords, and Argentina’s World Cup heroes, who had brought the golden trophy to the Rio de la Plata for the third time after 1978 and 1986, were visibly from theirs before the final whistle overwhelmed by feelings.