Batistuta: “Welcome if Messi takes the record”

The shirt and tie don’t matter. You have to jump and celebrate. And there it is Gabriel Batistuta in that video singing along with a group of fans after the victory of the National Team over Australia. One more fan who lives, suffers, enjoys and screams with the goals of Messi and company, even though that may mean that he is left without the historic brand Argentine top scorer in World Cups.

It was always a topic that Bati talked about. Even before the World Cup, in an interview with Olé, I saw that Leo was close since he arrived in Qatar with six goals, four of his record. But now it is a closer reality. Messi’s goals against Saudi Arabia, Mexico and Australia leave him 10 behind by just one goal. It’s even more so if you remember that against Poland he had a penalty and didn’t convert it, maybe he would have already matched it.

Now it’s really close.

-It is a record that I had for 20 years and I enjoyed it. Now it is fair that someone else take it and if apart from that other one is called Messi, welcome.

Batistuta is excited like the thousands of fans in Doha. He is seen in the audience singing with Sorin, Cambiasso, Zanetti, Crespo and Kun Agüero. All with a past remembered with the light blue and white. And obviously, how is he not going to shout Messi’s goals even though he is left without a mark. He is so involved that on the post-Australia team’s rest day, Bati was seen enjoying a boat along the Qatari coast along with two other Argentine goalscorers in the World Cup: Julián Alvarez and Alexis Mac Allister.

Bati’s numbers in the World Cups are really impressive because he scored his ten goals in just 12 games in three World Cups. “It makes me angry because I didn’t have many games. I played a first phase, an eighth and a fourthyes, that annoys me a lot. I was not given a semifinal or something like that, ”she recounts. Messi, with all three in Qatar, reached 9 in his five World Cups in 23 games.

Leo’s permanence in the elite of the elite is one of his characteristics that allows him to break and break records. And one more would not be surprising and taking into account the weight and influence on the team, the duel against the Netherlands this Friday (4:00 p.m. in Argentina) sounds possible. Very possible.

BATI’S GOALS IN THE WORLD CUPS

Bati is Argentina’s second all-time goalscorer with 56 goals (obviously, behind Messi’s 94). and it was a lethal nine. He had enormous physical power and a missile on his right foot. He played his first World Cup in the United States in 1994: he dispatched in his debut with three goals to Greece and, Already in the round of 16, he converted one more to Romania. Argentina’s luck was not the best due to Maradona’s doping and the elimination against the Romanians.

In France 1998, he started the World Cup with a goal against Japan. Then he scored three for Jamaica and another for England in the round of 16. The National Team ended its World Cup participation in the quarterfinals. Precisely in the elimination against the Netherlands, Bati burst a ball off the crossbar and was unable to convert.

In 2002 he fought hand in hand for the position with Crespo, but Batistuta ended up winning it over. He scored the winning goal for Argentina against Nigeria but the team was left out in the first phase.

MESSI’S GOALS IN THE WORLD CUP

Germany 2006 was his first World Cup. Leo scored his first goal in the win over Serbia and Montenegro at the time.

In 2010, with Maradona as coach, Argentina reached the Quarterfinals but Messi could not score a goal.

Brazil 2014 would have Messi in the seven games of that runner-up for the Sabella National Team. He scored goals for Bosnia, Iran and two for Nigeria.

In 2018, Leo scored a great goal against Nigeria when Argentina was playing to qualify for the second phase.

And now in 2022 he already has three: in his debut with Arabia, against the Mexicans and against Australia.