Lionel Messi carefully analyzed Croatia goalkeeper Livakovic’s ability to take penalties before entering the 2022 World Cup semi-final match.
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As we know, Argentina excellently defeated Croatia in the semi-finals of the 2022 World Cup with a score of 3-0. Lionel Messi is still the leader who carried the whole team to victory with a super performance.
Argentina easily defeated France to advance to play in the World Cup final.
In particular, Lionel Messi revealed after the match that he and his two teammates, Emiliano Martinez and Rulli, studied the penalty-taking style of opponent goalkeeper Livakovic.
Messi discovered that goalkeeper Livakovic often stands still and waits for the opponent to step forward before performing a diving movement on penalty kicks.
In the 35th minute of the match against Croatia, Argentina received an 11m penalty after Julian Alvarez was fouled in the penalty area.
The special thing here is that Messi did not `miss` a beat like in the match against the Netherlands or deceive Livakovic, but he shot a very strong shot into the top corner of the goal, causing the Croatia goalkeeper to just `give up`.
Speaking to TyC Sports after the match, the superstar born in 1987 said: `I studied the Croatian goalkeeper’s technique with Rulli and Emiliano. We talked about how he (Livakovic) often stands still.`
Messi had previously scored twice from the 11-meter mark against Saudi Arabia and the Netherlands, but failed in the match against Poland after Wojciech Szczesny correctly guessed the ball’s direction.
Similarly, Livakovic saved four penalties in the penalty shootout in the knockout matches against Japan and Brazil, thus becoming a formidable opponent for Lionel Messi.
Messi’s penalty kick was unstoppable.
Clearly, Messi has invested and made significant progress in penalty kicks, because before that he often missed penalties and was criticized a lot.
The goal against Livakovic helped Messi rise to the top of the 2022 World Cup top scorer list with 5 goals, equal to second place Mbappe but with more assists.
The final match between Argentina and France takes place at 10:00 p.m. (Vietnam time).
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