The introductory sentence was missing, but it is possible to imagine it: “Argentine national team captain Lionel Messi speaks to the country”. And while all the televisions were still on, the World Cup top scorer sent out a message. “Let’s have fun: it’s an extraordinary result, it’s a great joy for the whole country to play a new world final again”said inside National chain.

Messi, the pilot, had the necessary break to give more arguments to the party that was already resounding in the stadium and which, surely, he imagined all over Argentina. Somehow raised the price to the final in the works.

“Many things went through my mind, it was very exciting to see all this. As we said at the beginning: to see people, family during the World Cup… what we experienced was something incredible”. he celebrated.

“When we had to start losing (on debut against Saudi Arabia) we ask people to trust. We know behind closed doors what we are, what we can give. You have to enjoy the final again, because we know what we are. This group is crazy!“, he mused.

“At home we knew we could do it. We never lied: we knew we weren’t the best candidates but we didn’t give anything to anyone. It’s all thanks to us”, he acknowledged the result and detailed the path to reach the most important of the seven matches he will play.

“It was risky to say, but we knew we were ready for it. We had no doubts that this group would try. We will play the last one, which is what we wanted. I’m happy, I don’t know if it’s my best World Cup, but as I said at the beginning I had a lot of fun, even though we had to lose at the beginning. We did it, we will play another final“He said after the match.

play for the shirt

The technical director, Lionel Scaloni, He highlighted the success of his executives and noted a detail: that the entry has not to do with economic income, but rather with the incentive to defend the colours. The Captain has taken the concept and expanded upon it.

“We proved it a long time ago, it doesn’t mean it wasn’t like that before. There’s no money here or anything like that, this is for the shirt, for the people and for the glory. But it has never been different. Every player who has worn this shirt has done so with that thought, it happened there, it didn’t happen, but it’s always been like this.”

“My family is the most important thing, the one that has always accompanied me. They have been hard, they have always been there, and now a spectacular is happening to us,” he celebrated.

“I am really enjoying it”

“I’m really enjoying all of this. I feel good, strong to face every match. It’s a very big sacrifice, the last match was not an easy stretch and today we arrived tired but the group gathered strength to give an extra gear,” he analyzed.

“We played a very serious match, which went as we thought, they with the ball in the middle because they have good players, we had to run. We prepared the match very well. Personally I feel happy, luckily I can help the group make things work,” he said with extreme modesty.

“This group, beyond the strength of the group, is very intelligent, they know how to read the game. Scaloni said it recently: it’s a group that knows how to suffer when it’s necessary, have the ball or retire. We have an excellent technical staff, they leave nothing to chanceIt lets you know every detail and this is useful when we are in the field. We are never lost,” he praised.

“We didn’t despair when we had to race and (the rivals) moved us from place to place. It was their forte, but our strength was to recover because they are very messy in the setback,” he said.

“The first match was a huge blow for us, because we had been unbeaten for 36 matches and starting like this, with an opponent against whom no one imagined we would lose before, was a tough test for us. This group took advantage of every match . What we did was very difficult because every match was a final and we were aware that if we didn’t win it would become complicated. We have won five and hopefully we can win the next one as well. We’ll do our best to try and get him,” she said.