“Messi’s men are too good”: this is how the Australian newspaper reacted, putting a voodoo doll of the Argentine captain on the cover

Lionel Messi’s voodoo doll couldn’t stop him: despite attempts to derail the Argentinian number 10 in this Saturday’s match, Argentina beat Australia 2-1 and qualified for the next round of the FIFA World Cup World, putting an end to the dream of those from Oceania.

On the other side of the world, the feeling was one of frustration. Or at least that’s how he was captured by The West Australian newspaper, which said so “Argentina put an end to the dream streak.”

This is the same medium that hours earlier had posted the different methods for “drilling” to the captain of the Scaloneta that the Australians were using to prevent the attacker from performing well during the match.

After the loss, they headlined ‘Messi’s men are too good’assuming elimination after a fair match.

In other of their cover stories, they have referenced their national team’s campaign and Argentina’s resistance against them.

“Argentina resists Australian surge to end dream streak,” they posted, recalling their surprise round of 16 qualification by finishing second in their group, leaving out Denmark and Tunisia.

The West Australian was one of the few outlets that echoed what happened at the World Cup in Qatar: Australia is, historically, a country where football fever hardly exists. On the contrary, they are loyal followers of their rugby team and Australian football.

A voodoo doll, the Australian press’s method to “bewitch” Lionel Messi

With a dash of humor and another of irony – or mockery – the Saturday edition of The West Australian newspaper showed on the cover a drawing that pretended to be a doll of Captain del Rosario pricked with pins. The famous black magic, better known as gualicho in these lands.

“Help ‘pierce’ Messi”, reads the title in large letters. Another text, with a yellow background, explains the illustration: “Yes… we used a voodoo doll to help our footballers beat the greatest of all time”.

Not only that, but they asked for help from the readers themselves to copy the method and that energy to affect this afternoon’s game, already night in Qatar and early Sunday morning for them.

“To even the odds, The West Australian is urging readers to stick pins into Messi’s voodoo doll on the front page of Saturday’s paper to help our Socceroos beat the greatest of all time. It might be enough to scramble! Its goal radar!” they exclaimed of the Rosario star who will play his 1,000th professional match.

It is that, they also explained on the cover, “after all, they face not only the third-ranked team in the world, but also Lionel Messi, perhaps the best player of all time”.