Messi: “There are many bad things to correct”

The captain of the Argentina team, Lionel Messi, made self-criticism after the suffered ticket to the round of 16 against a Cape Verde team that pressed the champion until extra time (3-2), forced to “correct” to continue advancing in the 2026 World Cup.

“We knew it was going to be a very tough game, it’s not for nothing that this team had not lost to Spain, to Uruguay. We did the most difficult thing, finding the first goal, and we thought that with that we were going to find our game and be calmer and it was quite the opposite,” he said in the interview with FIFA after being the MVP.

The ’10’ was named best player of the match at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, where he opened the scoring but suffered resistance from a debutant who pushed the defending champion to the limit. “We lost the ball, we got behind and we couldn’t press well. They hit with their weapons. We knew it was going to be difficult, this is mata-mata and nobody gives you anything,” he said.

“This is what marks this World Cup in particular, everything is very close, very complicated, all the games are going to be very difficult. Today we made a very big effort as always, playing well, playing badly. The important thing now is to rest, think about what is to come, take the positive things from today’s game, which beyond winning there are also some, and correct the bad ones, which I think were many today as well,” he added.

On the other hand, Messi referred to the goals in extra time from set pieces, an offensive plot that had not yet been exploited. “Today we had the importance of the dead ball that we had not been converting and in games like this it is important, we have good headers and luckily today we were able to take advantage of it. We have been working on it and it will be important to be strong there too. In a competition like this it is important and today it was demonstrated,” he said.