Lionel Messi in to shape as Argentina beat Croatia to reach World Cup final

Argentina reached their sixth World Cup final after securing an impressive victory against 2018’s runners-up Croatia.

Lionel Scaloni’s side will face the winner of France vs Morocco in the final at the Lusail Stadium on Sunday thanks to a penalty from Lionel Messi and two strikes from Julian.

Argentina began their tournament with a shock 2-1 defeat by Saudi Arabia but have responded with five successive wins to book their place in the final.

After a cagey and even first 30 minutes, the game sprung into life when Alvarez got in behind the Croatia defence and was brought down by goalkeeper Dominik Livakovic. Messi stepped up and smashed in the resulting penalty to make it 1-0.

Argentina doubled their lead shortly after as Alvarez ran from the halfway line, avoiding tackles and benefiting from some fortunate ricochets to smash in from close range. Croatia rarely threatened and the game was put beyond their reach when Messi and Alvarez combined again.

Messi produced some trademark magic to get past Josko Gvardiol and set up Alvarez for a tap-in – his fourth goal of the tournament – which made things safe. They will now have the chance to rectify their pain from the 2014 tournament, when they fell at the final hurdle.

Another game, another Messi moment. The Paris Saint-Germain magician had been very quiet for the majority of the opening 30 minutes before Livakovic’s foul on Alvarez allowed him another chance to make history.

His supremely confident spot-kick saw him overtake Argentina football icon Gabriel Batistuta as the nation’s top ever scorer at a World Cup. It was his fifth goal of this tournament and his 11th in World Cups altogether.

We have been blessed to see many brilliant moments from Messi – and this didn’t stand out in the grand scheme of things – but it was still a real show of composure under huge pressure.

If the penalty didn’t excite you, then his play to set up Alvarez’s second should have. His innate ability, close-control and change of speed bamboozled Gvardiol and put it on a plate for Alvarez.

Croatia progressed to the semi-finals thanks to their organisation, hard work and determination. Their defence had kept clean sheets against Morocco and Belgium and limited Brazil’s star-studded attack to one goal in 120 minutes of play.

In Gvardiol they possess one of the breakout stars of the entire tournament, a young centre-back of impressive athleticism and anticipation. And in Livakovic they have benefited from one of the tournament’s stand-out goalkeepers – a player who has got them through two penalty shoot-outs by making four saves.

All of that dissolved in nine minutes of madness against Argentina. One ball over the top beat the defence for the penalty incident before Alvarez was allowed to run and run for the second.

Zlatko Dalic’s side were uncharacteristically sloppy – and it cost them. They conceded as many goals in 90 minutes here as they had in the rest of the tournament.