Lionel Messi worked if not a miracle then certainly a sensation. Besides becoming the best player of the season, the coveted trophy that had been missing for a long 36 years was returned to Argentina.
Internet users were also touched by the team captain's reaction to the victory, VRKNews.kz reports.
“How much I dreamed, how much I wanted this… And now I can't believe it all happened. Thank you very much to my family and to everyone who supported me, and also to those who believed in us,” the athlete wrote on Instagram after the grand match.
Interestingly, this very Messi post about Argentina's World Cup victory has broken Ronaldo's record for likes among athletes, already gaining 53+ million. It is in second place among all Instagram posts.
At the time of the news's publication the post by the captain of Argentina's national team devoted to the World Cup win has more than 43 million likes.
Messi's post has beaten the record of a photograph with a Louis Vuitton advert that Cristiano Ronaldo published about a month ago. That post has just over 42 million likes.
“Thank you very much to my family, to everyone who supports me and to everyone who believed in us. We showed once again that we Argentines, when we fight together and united, are capable of achieving all our goals. Each of us put the team above himself,” Messi wrote.
In the match Messi scored twice: in normal time he scored from a penalty and in extra time he beat Hugo Lloris from open play. He also converted his attempt in the penalty shoot-out.
In number of likes Messi's post is second only to a photograph of a chicken egg published in January 2019 with the caption: “Let's set a world record together and get the most liked post on Instagram”. It currently has more than 55.9 million likes.
Messi's family, incidentally, attended the game in full. After the final whistle Lionel's mother ran onto the pitch to congratulate her son in person. Then the champion's wife and children rushed into his arms to share the joy of the triumph.
“We feel the greatest pride in you. At last you are a world champion! We know how much you wanted it and how you moved towards the goal,” Antonella Roccuzzo wrote on Instagram.
Recall that on 18 December Argentina beat the French national team in the tournament's main match. The two regulation halves ended 2:2, in extra time the teams exchanged goals, and in the post-match penalty shoot-out the South Americans were more accurate — 4:2. At the end of the tournament Messi was named the best player of the World Cup.
