Argentina went through to the knock out stages with three wins in the bag in as many matches. In their final encounter against they beat Nigeria 3-2 to keep an all-win record in this year’s tournament.
The match began in great fashion as Messi opened the scoring for Argentina in the 3rd minute of the match. Nigeria replied strongly equalizing in the very next minute through Musa. At 1-1 the match began to get more exciting as neither team was ready to let the other take any advantage. But when one has got someone like Lionel Messi, it gets a bit hard for the other to keep him mellowed down. And the same happened with Nigeria. They restricted Argentina but not Lionel Messi and consequently they were down 2-1 at the break as Messi curled in from a free-kick few yards away from the penalty box with the match moving into the first minute of the 2 minutes of added time.
Nigeria yet again proved their mettle when play restarted after the break. They were level 2 minutes into the second half. Musa was the man again. This time he slotted in a through ball from the midfield sending the keeper to the wrong way to bring Nigeria back on level terms. But they could not prevent Argentina from taking the lead for a long time. Rojo scored for the South Americans in the 50th minute as he tucked in from a corner kick to give Argentina a crucial lead. Nigeria kept on trying till the end but couldn’t find the illusive equalizer.
Argentina lived dangerously at times as their attack lost the cutting edge once Lionel Messi was substituted. Towards the end it was Angel Di Maria’s solo runs that kept the argentines going. Fortunately Nigeria couldn’t score otherwise it would have spoilt the party of going into the knockouts without dropping a point.
Argentina will now face Switzerland in their first knock out game, while Nigeria will be up against the mighty French who has played devastating football till date.
Tags: Brazil Worldcup 2014 FIFA 2014 FIFA worldcup 2014
