Messi: Argentina Win Down to "Luck"

Lionel Messi admitted that Argentina was lucky to progress to the quarterfinals of the World Cup after his driving run and pass found Angel Di Maria, who stroked the ball home justtwo minutes before the end of overtime to give the Albiceleste a narrow 1-0 win against Switzerland on Tuesday.

“Like everybody I was very nervous because we couldn’t score,”he said. “We knew if we made a single mistake we would have been going home. We didn’t want it to go to penalties and wanted to finish it off.” The Barcelona striker added: “Wesuffered and suffered, all of us. We started to think it wasn’t going to happen. But at the end we had luck on our side and now we have to take advantage and move on.”

WhileArgentina coach Alejandro Sabella thought his team deserved the win, former World Cup winner Diego Maradona disagreed, saying that so far, Messi is “alone” atthis World Cup. “It seems to me that we have not got started yet,” Maradona said. “The team has no rhythm, no movement up front. The kid [Messi] is very alone. I have something very strong inside — abitter taste, anger, fight. Argentina have the team to do a lot better than this. They are at 40 percent [of their potential].”