This night, the qualifiers for the 2026 World Cup in the South America zone continued. And there was a big clash between Brazil and Argentina. The opportunity to see, on paper, an interesting match with high stakes while both teams had lost the previous day. But the meeting was ultimately sadly marked by violent outbursts, the images of which are already going around the world. In the stands, several supporters were attacked and the scenes of violence were shocking.
It was during the anthems that clashes took place between Argentinian and Brazilian supporters. Faced with this situation, the meeting had to be delayed by several tens of minutes. To ease tensions, several players, notably Emiliano Martinez and Marquinhos, even had to come to the stands. After the match which was finally played (1-0 victory for Argentina), captain Lionel Messi had very strong words about this situation. La Pulga first returned to the athlete before making a big rant about the reception conditions for Argentine supporters in Brazil.
“We think about our family, we are more focused on that than on the game”
“We saw how they hit people, like what happened in the final of the Copa Libertadores match where they hit with sticks. There were players who had families in these stands. You think about your family, you don’t know what’s going on and you’re more focused on that than the game.”, confided Lionel Messi to the microphone of Argentine television. Subsequently, the current Inter Miami player also explained that it was him who took the initiative to bring his team into the locker room while waiting for things to calm down.
“I decided we had to go back to the locker room because that was the way to calm everything down. Something bad could have happened. When everything calmed down, we decided to go in, ask how the family was doing, find out a little about everything. Then we went out to play” he detailed. On the pitch, Messi didn’t really shine and he even came off injured in the 77th minute. Enough to make Argentina talk and worry. But he wanted to reassure. “I have time to recover and start the year well. I’m going to prepare myself to have a great year, with a good pre-season from scratch. I’ve had adductor discomfort for some time.”
Pub. THE
Update