Records and other temptations that Messi will get along with the glory of winning the World Cup
Argentine Lionel Messi will be on Sunday against France on a date with more than achieving the dream of winning the World Cup in Qatar and joining the legend Diego Maradona, who gave his country its last title in 1986, as he will be unique in the record for the number of matches in the final, along with other numbers.
And after his participation in the great victory over Croatia 3-0 on Tuesday in the semi-finals of the Qatar World Cup, the 35-year-old became the same distance from the German Lothar Matthaus in the number of matches in the finals, amounting to 25, and he will be alone in the final scheduled for Sunday at Lusail Stadium.
Matthews played his 25 matches in the 1982, 1986, 1990, 1994 and 1998 finals.
With his participation in the Qatari finals, Messi reached another record, represented by the number of World Cups he played (5), similar to his Portuguese rival Cristiano Ronaldo, who was eliminated from the tournament in the quarter-finals, and Matthews as well.
Four players competed in the World Cup finals for the fifth time in their career during this edition, and they are the Mexicans Andres Guardado, the goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa, Messi and Ronaldo, to equal the achievement of the other Mexicans, goalkeeper Antonio Carvajal and Rafael Marques, and the Italian goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon and Matthews.
And after scoring five goals in the Qatari World Cup, including three in the eighth, quarter and semi-finals, to break his fast from scoring in the knockout rounds for four versions, Messi raised his tally to 11 goals in the finals, to break the Argentine record registered in the name of Gabriel Batistuta (10 in 12 games).
Messi's first goal was in the finals in 2006 when he entered the last quarter of an hour of the second round match against Serbia and Montenegro when his country was leading 3-0, adding the fifth after he had passed the fourth goal scored by Hernan Crespo, becoming at the age of 18 years and 357 days the youngest recorder. in the history of his country in the World Cup.
The current French Paris Saint-Germain star, on Sunday, is playing against his Parisian club colleague Kylian Mbappe, his last match in the World Cup, “because we are separated by many years until the next World Cup (he will be 39 years old) … to finish (the journey) in this way, it is better.” What could happen."
- Maldini and Pele next - With his 11 goals in the finals, Messi is now five short of the absolute record for goals in the finals, set by Germany's Miroslav Klose (16).
Messi and Mexican Rafael Marques participated in 18 matches as leaders, followed by Diego Maradona with 16, while Italian Paolo Maldini holds the record for the largest number of minutes played in the World Cup, which is 2217 minutes, while Messi reached the semi-final to 2194 minutes, and thus he will have the opportunity to break the record of the Milan legend.
And Messi is the only player who made assists in each of the five versions in which he participated, and after him comes the Brazilian Pele, the Polish Grzegorz Lato, Diego Maradona and the English David Beckham, who made the goals in three different versions.
Pele held the record for the largest number of assists in the knockout stages, with six assists, before Messi equalized him on Tuesday in the victory over Croatia, and he was able to break it on Sunday against France.
Solo with the achievement of being the only player to score in the World Cup when he was in his teens, twenties, and thirties, Messi has so far achieved 16 victories, while Miroslav Klose scored 17, which means that Sunday's coronation will also make him the same distance from the German.
And Messi has the record for getting the best player of the match in one edition, as he won the Man of the Match award four times in the 2014 Brazil edition, a record for one edition he shares with Dutchman Wesley Sneijder, who achieved that in South Africa 2010.
Messi returned to win this award four times in the Qatar edition, equaling the record, raising his total tally in the finals to ten titles in the lead, three ahead of his Portuguese rival Cristiano Ronaldo, who was knocked out of the Qatar finals in the quarter-finals by Morocco.
However, "the most important thing remains that we succeed in achieving the collective goal, which is the most beautiful goal ever. We are one step away after we fought a lot, and we will try to do our best in order to succeed this time" in lifting the cup.
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Lionel Messi,
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