⚽️ Kick-off: 12pm local/1pm ET/6pm BST/3am Mon AEST ⚽️ Player guide | Bracketology | Golden Boot | Mail Dominic A Messi-related email has landed from David Wall: I’ve got to take issue with your description of Messi’s hat-trick in the opening game as brilliant. I’ll give you the third was high quality but the other two were pretty much chucked in by the Algerian goalkeeper. It’s the lowest value World Cup hat-trick since Harry Kane’s in 2018 against Panama (one header from about six yards, one penalty, and one that deflected off his heel when he was trying to get out of the way). Add in the fact that he was incredibly fortunate not to be sent off (presumably the VAR trained on footage from one of those old-fashioned all-village kickabouts), and I thought the hype about his performance was massively over the top. If Argentina are going to continue with their approach of tailoring the team to get the most out of Messi (even though Julián Álvarez is a much more effective forward now) then he’ll need to do a lot more than he showed against Algeria if they’re going to retain the trophy. Continue reading...

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