🥇 MOTM: The greatest enjoys a night for the history books | OneFootball

Argentina reached their sixth World Cup final in style on Tuesday night with a clinical dismantling of Croatia.

And our Man of the Match is …

Lionel Messi (Argentina)

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With respect to Julian Álvarez and the youngster’s fantastic brace, even he would surely cede that one man on the field was head and shoulders above the rest.

When you consider that in the moments Messi wasn’t directly involved, he was often limping on a hurt hamstring throughout, it makes this performance even more remarkable.

He refused to consider leaving the field when his country needed him most and he delivered for them. Again.

His penalty with the game still on a knife edge was unstoppable and all the more impressive considering goalkeeper Dominik Livaković’s spot-kick saving heroics in Qatar.

As for the setup for the third, that is a dribble and pass which will go down in World Cup folklore and is undoubtedly the assist of the 2022 tournament.

Joško Gvardiol had arguably been the best defender at the tournament until now – and Messi sent him for a new mask with his magic.

And fittingly for such an occasion, it was a night that saw him set a number of records to stack up against those who doubt his case as the greatest to play the game.

He became the joint men’s World Cup appearance maker, Argentina’s record World Cup goalscorer, their joint record assist provider …

We’re not done.

His 19 goal involvements (11 goals, eight assists) are also a record since data collection began in 1966. Since that same year, he’s the first man to score and assist in four different World Cup games (three of them coming in Qatar) and is the oldest player to net five goals in one edition of the tournament.

No player has more goals at this World Cup. And nobody has more assists.

This is Messi’s World Cup.