Lionel Messi sends Argentina message as World Cup defence begins

Lionel Messi’s side won the 2022 World Cup at the end of last year.

They have since gone unbeaten in their five matches since then, all while not conceding a single goal.

Their latest outing kicked off the South American qualifiers for the 2026 World Cup.

Argentina faced off with Ecuador and picked up a 1-0 win thanks to a 78th-minute free-kick from Lionel Messi.

The no.10 has since spoken out about the game:

“It was shown in the two friendlies and today, by the points, that this group is not going to relax beyond what it achieved. It was historic, extraordinary,” captain Messi said postgame. “We know that if we go down a little they will pass us over. There are going to be tough matches like this. Defeats, surely. We have to be as we are now, with our feet on the ground. Fight every game as we have been fighting since Scaloni started with All this”.

“We already knew it was going to be like this, especially because of the way the Qualifiers are. We knew that it is very difficult to win, that they are all very close matches. Ecuador is a great team. They have been showing since the last Qualifiers that they have very good players, that they are physically strong, that they are clear about what they do, although they changed coaches and now they are trying something else. What they do, they do very Well, we know what we had to do to get it going.”

The 36-year-old then stressed the importance of acknowledging that ‘everybody wants to beat Argentina’: “Now that we are world champions, even more. That’s why we can’t go down. We even have to go up a little more than we were doing. The demand in each game is maximum and, surely more and more.”

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