Saturday, 23 August 2008

Olympics: Argentina-Nigeria

Argentina won the Olympic gold medal by beating Nigeria in the final of the Beijing Games with 1-0.

Barcelona player Lionel Messi started the game and gave the assist for the winning goal of Di Maria in the 58th minute. Messi was replaced by Ezequiel Lavezzi in the 93rd minute.




Read more about Messi's performances during the Olympic tournament here





14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Congrats Messi. I am very delighted he won gold. He must be very happy and Barca would be delighted for him. Both parties can smile now. The only thing I would say is Messi needs to show his opponents more respect.
And this has also made me understand why these guys (players) always want to play for their country everytime, I supported Nigeria all the man. I didnt support MY MESSI for a second (lol) couldnt believe it myself. Country would always come first. Once again, many congrats Messi

Anonymous said...

correction**
I suppoerted Nigeria all the way man

Anonymous said...

What do you mean with: "he has to show his opponents more respect"?
For what i can tell: Messi has never been disrespectfull against anyone... But it could be just me?

Anonymous said...

Messi is comming back with a gold medal, very reasonable from the board as they let him go play in the olympics . his confidence will be up high.
I am glad for him. cmon win some gold medals with barca.

visca el barca

Anonymous said...

ronaldinho was very good in olympics and I think he will get his form back soon. Or what do you think?

Anonymous said...

@ anonymous
Did you see the match? End of 1st half? If you didnt then no qualms. He is young and can only get better(more professionla). Nothing personal agianst him. I Love the dude so dont get it twisted

Anonymous said...

nope,didn't see it...
Just wondering what you meant.
Can you describe what he did?
thanks!

Anonymous said...

cool. He didnt get the ball as much as he would have loved to in the fisrt half as the Ngrian defence was solid with two holding midfielders (like Yaya and Keita). So, when d 45mins whistle was blown he was complaining to a Niegrian guy, d guy tried to make peace and cuddle/shake him, the way Messi pushed the guy away was not professional and I am saying this cos he is "super-mega star" and eyes are always on stars. If it was anverage player, it wouldnt be interpreted as "arrogance" but Messi doing it would seem proud and arrogant, but trust the Nigeria man, he pushed him back. this could have been avoided. It reminded me of the Zidane issue, Materzzi reacted (said woteva) to Zidane cos he felt Zidane was arrogant. If you are star you need to be careful cos people take woteva you do as pride.
I would still remind you, I love Messi and I am sure this is just a "ONE-OFF"
Viva Barca

Anonymous said...

Congrats to Messi. Nigeria had a couple of great chances that they really should have converted. The pace and strength were as advertised, the ball skills were the only thing that kept them from winning this match. A lot of first touches bounced off feet to Argentine players, or dribbling attempts went awry. But no shame in their showing at all.

Messi was a little cranky at the end of the first half. Blame it on the heat and the intensity.

Ronaldinho looked like crap to me. Sluggish, mostly immobile and still way overweight. He didn't have any pep in his step. But Brazil didn't really have anyone who stood out. I can't believe that after those performances, Sao Paulo and Fluminense think the respective prices of Hernanes and Neves could rise. But we'll see.

Jnice said...

Man, Messi just gave the guy a shove, no big deal. A player with Messi's type of skill could easily be very disrespectful throughout the whole game if he wanted, he gave him a little shove, he didn't want to hear the Nigerian player's reason for hacking his legs and thats the end of it.

Anonymous said...

OK.I can undestand it; Messi (barca player) Vs anonymous. Lets put the matter to rest. You called it a "shove". No stress..
AND
Tnx Kxevin for your maturity and sincerity yet agian.It could be the heat and intensity

cojonudo said...

The match just reinforced to me how great Messi is and how he's continuing to mature as a person. He could have allowed his first half frustrations to carry over to the second half, but instead all it took was one individual piece of brilliance to set up Di Maria's goal.

That's a world class player for you. You can contain him for most of the match and all he needs is the slightest window of opportunity and he's going to kill you.

In truth I don't know how Nigeria could have played Messi any better. So I tip my hat to them for putting forth the effort. I also tip my hat to Messi for not letting the frustrations get to him to the point of psychologically taking himself out of the match. Instead he hung in there and provided the assist that lead to Argentina's lone goal.

Not the most "elegant" of Finals but if you look at their overall performance in the tournament Argentina deserved the Olympic Gold.

Anonymous said...

Since I didn't see it, i can't really judge.
But you are right: he is a megastar, so he should be carefull with those things because all eyes are on him.
Still: no harm done i think.
Excellent tournament from Nigeria, but let's face it: Argentina had the team to win gold. If you just look at the names, you know enough. Even without Messi, they should have won!
And Messi is simply the greatest. If only he could become more of a leader and not so much injures: What a fenomenon he would be!!

My country (Belgium) also showed great potential with three players who can be topclass in the future: Dembele (maybe even Barca-material), Vertonghen and Pocognolli!

Anonymous said...

wel said guys, Argentina deserved to win GOLD even b4 the games started, when i saw Riquelme, Messi, Mascherano, di maria, and co.I didnt expect to see NGR in the final. Messi did exceptionally well truout d competetion. He deserves d MVP award. He is the BEST in the world R7 isnt as good!!! Messi is Happy, Barca is Happy, I am happy as a Nigerian to win Silver. Gos Bless Messi God Bless Barca!!!

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