Messi magic lifts Argentina

The win lifted Messi’s team, recovering from two successive defeats, into fifth place in the South American group with 19 points, one behind Ecuador and Chile, who beat Uruguay 3-1 with an Alexis Sanchez brace. Brazil, who beat Peru 2-0 in Lima in a later match, top the table with 24 points while Uruguay are second with 23. Colombia dropped to sixth on 18 points. The top four go through to the 2018 finals in Russia with the fifth, at present Argentina, qualifying for an intercontinental playoff for another berth.

“It’s hard to analyse (the match) when you concede those kinds of goals and the more so when one team has a player like Messi,” said Colombia coach Jose Pekerman. “With the second goal, the match became practically impossible (for us). You try to get goals back but we couldn’t and Messi made the difference.” 

Argentina took a ninth-minute lead when Messi curled his free kick over the wall and into the top left corner of David Ospina’s net off the underside of the bar for his 57th Argentina goal. Five minutes later Messi’s superb ball over the defence was met on the edge of the six-yard box with a firm header into the bottom far corner by Lucas Pratto, justifying his inclusion in place of the benched Gonzalo Higuain. 

Messi cheekily stole the ball from a defender, raced into the box and laid the ball square where Di Maria blasted his 18th Argentina goal into the net. In Santiago, Sanchez scored twice in the second half as Chile came from a goal down after Edinson Cavani had put the Uruguayans ahead. Striker Eduardo Vargas equalised in first half stoppage time and Sanchez put Chile ahead with a shot from the edge of the box.