Messi and Di Maria lead Argentina to a friendly victory over "White"

Messi tries to shoot while being watched by the "White" defense.

Photography: Eric Arazas

Today, the Argentine national team achieved a big victory over Al-Abyad in a friendly match that was held at the Mohammed bin Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi, and it comes as part of the "Tango" camp in the Emirates, in preparation for participating in the "Qatar 2022" World Cup, which will start within days.

This is the first historical confrontation between the two teams, and it ended in favor of Argentina, 5-0.

The Tango goals were scored by Julian Alvarez (17), Angel Di Maria (25 and 36), Messi (44), and Joaquin Correa (60).

The national team did not do much in the match, while the public attendance was the most prominent, as it amounted to about 30,000 fans.

It was clear during the course of the match that the element of experience and great experience of most of the "tango" stars outweighed the players of the national team, led by the two stars Lionel Messi and Angel Di Maria.

The Argentine national team won the confrontation easily in its favor, despite the good start of the Emirati team, which surprised everyone at the start of the match, specifically in the first 15 minutes with a performance characterized by confidence and lack of fear from Messi and the Argentine stars.

The most prominent attempt was by Abdullah Hareb in an attack from the left, which he ended with a left-footed shot, which defender Martinez sent to a corner kick.

And then the “white” gets a corner kick, which the defense pushes away before the motivated Cayo Canedo.

The national team coveted the match in a way that prompted it to attack Argentina, with more than six players, at the 16th minute, and Ali Mabkhout almost put Abdullah Hamad, in a solitary position in the goal, but the Tango defense cut it off to reach the ball to Messi, who punished the “white” with a magic pass to Julian Alvarez, had no trouble finding the net.

The level of the national team declined unjustifiably after this goal, in a way that gave Argentina control of the field, and from one of the attempts, the left back, Marcos Acunieh, distributed a cross that crossed Hassan Saleh, so that Di Maria fired it directly in the direction of the goal, so it hit the right post and entered the goal.

After that, reaching Khaled Issa's goal became very easy for the Argentine stars, so Di Maria manipulated the defenders and the goalkeeper and scored the third goal as easily as possible.

And it was Messi's turn to put his mark before the first half ended, so he succeeded, after an Argentinean woman took control of the ball, to score a goal in his own way by deceiving two defenders, then he hit his right to the right of the goalkeeper.

And with the second period, Abdullah Hareb emerged, as he was in the first half, surprising the goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez with a shot from outside the box, which was blocked by the crossbar, in bad luck for the player.

The catastrophic mistakes of the Al-Abyad defense and goalkeeper Khaled Issa reappeared with an Argentine attack that lacked great danger. Rodrigo de Paul passed a ball, among three defenders, to Joaquin Correa, "winking" it, easily to the right of the goalkeeper.

But it is credited to the national team that he tried on more than one occasion to threaten the Argentine goal, so Caio missed two opportunities to “save face.” In the first, he received a pass from Khaled Al-Dhanhani, but he hit over the crossbar, and in the second, he received a ball in the same way and placed it near the left post.

And Cayo again refused to score, one of the easiest and closest opportunities in the match, after he received a ball with the goal empty from his goalkeeper, so that substitute German Pezzella pushed it away before it crossed the goal line.

Follow our latest local and sports news and the latest political and economic developments via Google news