AL RAYYAN, Qatar — Lionel Messi says he will not celebrate his personal milestone of reaching 1,000 professional matches after helping Argentina to a 2-1 victory over Australia in the World Cup round of 16, but instead admits his overriding emotion was relief at having come through a physical test just 48 hours after their last group stage match.
Messi, 35, scored Argentina’s first against the Socceroos with a wonderfully worked goal in the first half. Julian Alvarez then doubled the lead in the second half, but Argentina were made to hold on in the final throes of the match as Australia scored and threatened an equaliser late on.
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The match came just two days after they beat Poland in their final match of the group stage to secure their spot in the knockouts.
Messi was again in inspired form and was named Player of the Match. But despite reaching yet another career milestone and surpassing Diego Maradona’s mark of eight World Cup goals, Messi is not recognising this personal achievement.
Instead, he is just delighted at having come through a physical test so soon after their previous match.
“I am very happy for taking another step forward, achieving another objective,” Messi said postmatch.
“It was a very strong and difficult match — we knew it was going to be this way. We didn’t have much time to rest up and we were concerned as we knew it was going to be a physical match and they were very strong.”
