KIt’s probably lucky that the ball bounced against his shin again. Maybe it was luck, the way the ball bounced against his thigh and chest again. It may well be that it was luck how this probably most important goal of his life came about. But one thing cannot be: that Julián Álvarez, Argentina striker, didn’t make an effort to follow this luck step by step before and after through the Lusail Stadium until luck had no other option than to make a pact with him shut down.
Almost 39 minutes had been played on that night, when Argentina and Croatia met for the semi-finals of the FIFA World Cup, when Álvarez, number 9 in Argentina’s national team, charged the ball into the box.
He prevailed against his first opponent because the ball bounced on his shin. He beat his second opponent as the ball bounced to his thigh and chest. He then prevailed against the goalkeeper because he only had to shoot the ball past him with the full instep.
And so, due to a penalty kick (35th minute) and a shin-thigh-chest full-arch goal (39th minute), a game was suddenly decided that shouldn’t have been decided yet.
Happiness?
No, it really wasn’t a happy win as 88,966 people watched at Lusail Stadium. It was an Argentine victory.
Argentina beat Croatia 3-0 on Tuesday and became the first team to reach the final of this tournament. In the 35th minute, Lionel Messi scored the first goal. In the 39th and 69th minutes, Julián Álvarez shot the second and third. And in almost every other minute you could see why this team, both France and Morocco, who are fighting for the other place in the final this Wednesday (8:00 p.m. CET, in the FAZ live ticker for the soccer World Cup, on ZDF and on MagentaTV), can hit.
Now it should be noted that even for the great Argentina it is no longer a matter of course to beat these Croatians. In 2018 you already managed what was presented as a sensation at the time: you played the final against France.
Now that Luka Modrić, their cunning playmaker, is 37 years old, they are back in the Final Four. Apart from Modrić, what makes this team special? “We fought hard to win our independence as a nation,” says Modrić. “We will continue to fight to the last drop.” Whether that’s true or not, they have will.
Of Croatia’s six knockout games since the start of the 2018 World Cup, four have ended in penalties. They always won. For example in this quarter-final against Brazil – even if Neymar made it 1-0 in the 105th minute. Some teams would break it. The Croatians don’t. They played well against Argentina in the first 35 minutes. It seemed like they were a group of players who couldn’t lose – and were unlucky tonight to play against a player who couldn’t win at the moment.
“I feel very good, I feel strong for every game,” said Lionel Messi, speaking into the media room microphone later in the night he was Man of the Match again. It’s boring that he’s always elected, but what can you say? The striker from Paris played so spectacularly in some moments that one wondered how he intends to improve it.
Beaten for the first time: Croatia goalkeeper Dominik Livaković has no chance against Messi’s penalty.
:
Image: Reuters
There was the tight penalty shot (1:0). There was the possession of the ball in midfield plus the pass to Álvarez (2-0). And there was that dribbling against Joško Gvardiol, the most magical moment of the game, in which he spun so many times that Gvardiol, one of the tournament’s most reliable defenders, at one point resembled a grandpa trying in vain to catch an escaped rabbit in his garden .
Escaping Gvardiol in the penalty area, Messi put the ball perfectly in the middle where Álvarez just had to put it in the goal (3-0). The national team’s number nine shone because the number ten made him shine.
Blue and white bliss: In Buenos Aires there is great joy about reaching the final.
:
Image: dpa
When Messi was gone, Lionel Scaloni, his coach, sat in the media room and said into the microphone, “I’m honored to see Messi train and play. Every time you see him play, it’s a motivation for his teammates, for Argentina and for the whole world.”
It is Scaloni’s amazing achievement that he has complemented the offensive free movement of one great artist with the defensive discipline of the other small artists in his team. Messi plays for his teammates and his teammates play for Messi.
That started on Tuesday with Álvarez, the striker, running and running and running and ending with centre-back Nicolás Otamendi, who barely lost a tackle. When they defend so aggressively, it doesn’t have too much of a negative impact that Messi doesn’t play along. So this is what it looks like when the other Argentines flash their number ten.
That evening, the Croatians had 61 percent possession of the ball – and yet they only had three shots on goal. Happiness? No, a plan: a coach who leads; a team that defends; a player who makes the difference. In the semi-finals you could see that Argentina has what it takes to become world champions this winter.