The Argentine National Team crushed Curaçao 7-0 at the Madre de Ciudades stadium in Santiago del Estero, for the second friendly of this FIFA date after the 2-0 win against Panama last Thursday at the Monumental.
In this match, Lionel Messi surpassed his 100th goal with the National Team shirt: with his hat-trick he reached 102 goals with the albiceleste shirt. The 99 celebrations had been achieved in 173 games , in which he also gave 53 assists. La Pulga has been scoring at least one goal with the National Team for 18 consecutive years ; he just couldn't scream in 2005 , the year of his debut.
Curaçao is a team that competes in the Confederation of North, Central America and the Caribbean Soccer (Concacaf). In addition, it is ranked 86th in the FIFA team ranking.
The Argentine national team is going through a present full of tributes and gratitude for the squad that won the World Cup in Qatar.
The victory over Curaçao was their second win in as many games at the beginning of 2023, although the results were put on the back burner to celebrate the historic title in front of the fans.
However, it also brought about an unexpected opportunity thanks to Brazil's 2-1 loss to Morocco, as the Albiceleste displaced the Canarinha as the new leader of the FIFA ranking ahead of the next official update.
FIFA's algorithm.
In the run-up to the last match in Santiago del Estero, the algorithm that uses the national teams' standings determined that the reigning world champions had added 1.52 points by beating the Panamanians and climbed to 1,839.90. On the other side of the table, the Scratch had lost 6.63 points after losing to the recent World Cup surprise and dropped to 1,834.14. The team coached by Ramon Menezes did not organize another match in the international window, so they had no chance of regaining the crown.
The new threat.
The new threat is the World Cup runner-up, France. Les Bleus got off on the right foot in qualifying for Euro Germany 2024 with a 4-0 thrashing of the Netherlands and added 10.54 points to their coefficient to stand at 1,833.93. On Monday they beat Ireland 1-0 in Dublin and became the new chaser of Argentina.
The progression on the scoreboard.
Goals: 1-0, min. 20, Messi. 2-0, min. 23, Gonzalez. 3-0, min. 33, Messi. 4-0, min. 35, Fernandez. 5-0, min. 37, Messi. 6-0, min. 78, Di Maria. 7-0, min. 87, Montiel.
Source images: AFA.