Argentina advances as Messi's mates step up after PK miss

By Doug McIntyre
Updated Nov 30, 2022 4:33 pm EST

DOHA, Qatar — In Argentina's last game, Lionel Messi staved off potential World Cup elimination all by himself, scoring the winner against Mexico and then setting up the insurance goal. 

Those efforts kept alive his hopes of ending his career holding the only trophy he has never won for at least one more match.

In the Albiceleste's group stage finale Wednesday against Poland, his teammates put the greatest player who has ever lived on their shoulders instead.

After being stunned by Saudi Arabia in their opener, Argentina — one of the pre-tournament favorites — needed another victory to guarantee a spot in the knockout round. 

Argentina thoroughly dominated the Poles throughout a pulsing first half. And it seemed as though that relentless pressure had earned the break it needed when, after video review showed Messi taking Polish keeper Wojciech Szczęsny's forearm in the face, Lionel Scaloni's side was awarded a penalty that Messi stepped up himself to take.

Then Szczęsny batted away Messi's spot kick.

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Poland and Argentina remained scoreless in the first half after Wojciech Szczęsny denied Lionel Messi on a penalty kick opportunity. Szczęsny became the third keeper ever to stop two penalties in a single World Cup.

The teams went into the dressing rooms at halftime scoreless. 

The thought nobody wanted to think surely was on the mind of every one of the tens of thousands of baby blue and white-clad fans packed into Stadium 974 in the Qatari capital, and tens of millions more across planet futbol: Could the most otherworldly career in the history of the sport really end not just with the 35-year-old Messi not holding the hardware aloft for the cameras but in the most anticlimactic possible way with a group-stage exit?

Every soccer fan has seen games in which the keeper just can't be beat. Szczęsny's penalty save was his second in as many matches. Through Poland's first five halves in Qatar, the veteran backstop for Italian titan Juventus had not conceded a single goal. If this was to be one of those nights, the GOAT, by a cruel twist of fate, would've been the goat.

For most of his almost two decades with the national team, the Albiceleste has gone as Messi has. When he performed well, they won. When he didn't, neither did they. Unlike at Barcelona, the only club he'd known since moving to Paris Saint-Germain last year, his supporting cast seemed unable to lift him up on those rare off days.

That responsibility began to weigh on Messi as the years passed. Argentina lost three consecutive finals from 2014-16: two Copa Americas and one World Cup. Messi wasn't particularly good in any of them. 

The tide finally turned last summer, when an Ángel Di María strike gave Messi and his team the South American title, his first for his country. Messi wasn't good in that one either, not that anyone would know it by the way he celebrated afterward. 

But here at this World Cup, things reverted to the old. The tension was thick as the teams emerged from the tunnel to start the second half.

Maybe we'll find out what Scaloni or Messi or anyone else said during the 15-minute intermission; video of the impassioned the speech the famously quiet Messi gave before of that ultimately successful 2021 Copa America final triumph over Brazil went viral shortly before Qatar 2022 kicked off.

Maybe we won't. No matter. Messi needed his teammates to make up for his missed penalty, and they delivered for their captain with aplomb.

Less than a minute after the break, Di María played a slick give and go with overlapping fullback Nahuel Molina, whose first-time cross was steered past Szczęsny by Alexis Mac Allister:

Argentina was cruising at that point. And when Julián Álvarez added the Albiceleste's second in the 67th minute, the match was all but over.

Messi & Co. have plenty left to do if they are to win this World Cup on Dec. 18 at Lusail Iconic Stadium, starting with their round of 16 meeting with Australia on Saturday (2 p.m. ET, FOX and the FOX Sports app). 

But Job 1 — advancing despite that shocking loss to the Saudis — is done.

Messi might be the best player ever. There will surely be more magic to come from him as the calendar flips to December. But even the GOAT can't win the World Cup all by himself — nor should he be expected to. 

On Wednesday's evidence at least, his teammates seem to know it, too.

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