Lionel Messi’s performance in Argentina’s win over Australia on Saturday night was the best individual performance of the World Cup, according to Rio Ferdinand.
Messi starred as Argentina picked up a 2-1 victory in the last 16 to book a quarter-final against the Netherlands on Friday. The Paris Saint-Germain star opened the scoring with a typical Messi goal, exchanging passes before firing a curling left-footed shot into the bottom corner.
Argentina went 2-0 up thanks to a mistake from Mat Ryan which was seized upon by Julian Alvarez before Craig Goodwin’s deflected effort made things interesting. Messi set up two brilliant chances for Lautaro Martinez to make the game safe, but the substitute could not take either and Garang Kuol nearly made them pay with a late opportunity for the Socceroos.
