Topics: Lionel Messi, Argentina, Football World Cup
Lionel Messi gave some fans an almighty scare for a moment or two, as he went down injured in Argentina's World Cup warm up friendly.
A lot of neutrals are desperate for Messi to win the World Cup with Argentina next month, and finally put to bed any lingering arguments about him being the greatest of all time.
Even Jamie Carragher admitted that he is hoping the PSG player will win the tournament, rather than seeing England winning it for the first time since 1966.
So one of the worst things that could happen would be to see the seven time Ballon d'Or winner limp off early, as some fans in the United Arab Emirates thought they would on Wednesday night.
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Argentina faced the UAE in a pre tournament game at the Mohammed bin Zayed Stadium and the 35-year-old went down under a challenge, after hobbling for a moment, with fans losing their minds, before he quickly got back to his feet, as you can see in the video below.
Messi has won virtually everything there is to win in the game, and won most of it more than once, especially when it comes to club football.
The one cloud that hung over him was his lack of success in international football, with the PSG star often mocked for not doing it for his country.
There were multiple finals failures, in both the World Cup and Copa America, losing three in as many years, two on penalties.
However, last year he finally broke the duck when he led Argentina to glory in the Copa, to be crowned South American champions.
Messi was the tournament's top goal scorer and best player as they beat Brazil in the final.
Before Tuesday night, the magical forward had already had one injury 'scare,' during training with his national team on the weekend.
Messi pranked his teammates by pretending to be injured, grabbing his hamstring during public training, to have a joke with Rodrigo De Paul.
Earlier this month, there was talk of him using an 'Argentina clause' in his PSG contract, that allows him to prioritise international football ahead of his club.
That could have seen him miss out on the final Ligue 1 game before the break, something that became even more possible when he did miss some games through injury.
However, he, along with Kylian Mbappe and Neymar, started as the French champions beat Auxerre 5-0 at the weekend.
Argentina kick off their World Cup campaign vs Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, before facing Mexico a week on Saturday and Poland the following Wednesday.
If both sides win their groups and then get through the rounds, then Messi could be going up against teammate and friend Neymar in a huge semi final clash between two South American sides.
