Forty six days after announcing his international retirement in the immediate aftermath of missing a penalty in Argentina’s shootout loss to Chile in the Copa American Centenario final, he has triumphantly declared his return, having missed exactly zero international matches.
If Lionel Messi thought the best way to avoid further abuse from the country of his birth in perhaps the most painful moment of his professional career was to immediately retire from international football, he was right.
After a grueling 120 minutes, the last 78 of which were played 10v10, Chile and Argentina went to penalties in a Copa America final for the second straight year. Sergio Romero gave Argentina a huge boost by saving Arturo Vidal’s shot to start things off, but then the unthinkable happened: Leo Messi missed the goal entirely. Argentina went on to lose the shootout. Again.
It turned out the pitchside advertisements put up more of a fight against Argentina than the U.S. did in their Copa America semifinal. Ezequiel Lavezzi, who opened the scoring in Argentina’s 4-0 win with a 3rd-minute goal, fell backwards over the pitchside board in the second half and broke his elbow.
The injury will prevent Lavezzi, who scored twice in the tournament, from playing in the final.
The advertisement went unpunished. It had just as many shots on goal as the U.S.
This has been the Dirty Tackle of the Day: a chronicling of unfortunate events.
Going into the Copa America Centenario semifinals, there was a lot of optimism in the U.S. Once the home side made it through the group stage, there was a sense that anything could happen. Unfortunately for them, it was Lionel Messi that happened.
@BrooksDT @MenInBlazers even FS1 doesnt want to see Wondo playing pic.twitter.com/gGCWhDRby9
— Lou Dilonardo (@ndloud50) June 22, 2016
Things went very bad very fast for the U.S. in their Copa America semifinal against Argentina. They conceded a goal within the first five minutes and looked completely bewildered from then on — a state that apparently extended to broadcaster Fox, who attributed a yellow card for Chris Wondolowski to U.S. women’s team backup goalkeeper Ashlyn Harris.
You’re down 2-0 to mighty Argentina in the Copa America quarterfinals. You’ve been awarded a penalty and now you have a golden opportunity to cut your opponents’ lead in half and turn the momentum. If you’re Venezuela’s Luis Seijas, a man who is completely insane, this is a perfect opportunity to show off your nonexistent Panenka skills.
Naturally, Argentina keeper Sergio Romero caught this abysmal attempt with the minimum effort possible and now Seijas is an international laughingstock.
It takes big brass balls to attempt a move like this at a time like this. Unfortunately, Seijas made it look like he was kicking a big brass ball, too.
Lionel Messi only played a total of 74 minutes in Argentina’s three Copa America Centenario group-stage matches. This was still enough to make him the competition’s joint-top scorer with (eliminated) Brazil’s Philippe Coutinho, but his three goals aren’t the reason his Argentina teammates think he is the key to them finally winning a trophy after two consecutive near misses. In fact, it has nothing to do with his otherworldly skill at all. It’s all down to the new hair on his face.
When we last saw Lionel Messi on the pitch, he was walking off with an injury and a bit of Beckham-like stubble on face. Exactly two weeks later, a fully bearded Messi made his belated first appearance in Copa America Centenario and promptly scored three goals and set up a fourth in a span of 29 minutes to lift Argentina to a 5-0 win over 10-man Panama and become joint-top scorer for the tournament with Brazil’s Coutinho.
Angel Di Maria scored Argentina’s first goal in a 2-1 win over reigning Copa America champions Chile, getting a bit of payback for last year’s final. To celebrate his goal, Di Maria held up a T-shirt that read “Grandma, I will miss you a lot.”
