Key clash of football titans
Messi’s Argentina must beat Lewandowski’s Poland to secure humiliating group stage exit from World Cup
Two of the best players on the planet go head-to-head when Lionel Messi of Argentina and Robert Lewandowski of Poland meet with World Cup implications at 8am (NZT) in what is likely Messi’s final attempt to win the tournament.
That match is part of an intense day at the World Cup: Mexico could be eliminated from the group stage for the first time since 1978 and Saudi Arabia have a chance to advance after their opening-game upset over Argentina.
But the spectacle will be at Stadium 974 in Doha, where Messi and Lewandowski square off.
Poland lead the group and a draw is enough to advance to the round of 16. But after the shocking loss to Saudi Arabia in its opening match, Argentina is only guaranteed to advance with a victory. A draw could get Argentina into the next round depending on the other result.
A loss? Well, that would mean elimination and humiliation. Messi is playing in his record-tying fifth World Cup and, at 35 years old, he’s unlikely to play in a sixth.
He knows it, too, and the devoted Argentina fanbase shed tears after Messi scored the crucial second-half goal to seal a 2-0 win over Mexico last week. Argentina has not been eliminated from the group stage since 2002.
“I think when the groups were drawn and we were put together, the whole world has been waiting for this match,” Poland coach Czeslaw Michniewicz said.
Poland is trying to advance out of the group stage for the first time since 1986, and the Poles last went unbeaten in all three first round games in 1982 en route to the semifinals. Lewandowski failed to convert a penalty in a 0-0 draw with Mexico, but he scored his first career
World Cup goal in a 2-0 win over Saudi Arabia.
Messi and Lewandowski have never before played each other at the international level, but have gone head-to-head three times at the club level in the Champions League. Messi scored twice for Barcelona in a 2015 win and Lewandowski scored once each for Bayern Munich in victories over Barcelona in 2015 and 2020.
Michniewicz said the match is much bigger than two players and it will be a team effort, not Messi or Lewandowski, that decides the game.
“It’s not Messi versus Lewandowski. It’s not tennis, it’s not 1-on-1. They are not serving to each other,” the Poland coach said. “Robert needs his teammates, like Leo does. ‘‘They rely on their teammates, they can’t do this alone, although these individual players can do a lot themselves.”
Earlier matches this morning were to see Tunisia take on France and Australia come up against Denmark, while Saudi Arabia and Mexico kick off at 8am, the same time as the Argentina-Poland clash.