Messi converting a spot kick during the 2022 World Cup
Neymar Jr. has made a stunning claim, crediting his penalty kick technique as the secret behind Lionel Messi’s triumph in the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
After successive failures and narrowly missing out on the coveted trophy in 2014, when Argentina lost the final in extra time to Germany, Messi finally had his moment in 2022. The eight-time Ballon d’Or winner guided Argentina to their third World Cup, winning the overall best player of the tournament.
Argentina’s route to the World Cup saw them awarded five penalty kicks, with spot-kicks against Saudi Arabia and Poland in the group stages, and then three more in the knockout phase against the Netherlands, Croatia, and France.
Messi converted all but one, missing against Poland as Wojciech Szczesny made a fine save to deny him. Messi’s five penalties at Qatar 2022 were the most by any player in any single edition of the World Cup.
However, Neymar, in an interview with Podpah, disclosed how Messi, using his technique, bore fruit for him at the World Cup.
“We were practicing penalties, and he was like, ‘How can you hit it like that?’ I looked at him and said, ‘Are you crazy? You’re Messi. If I can hit it like that, you can too. You train, master it.’ Then he started laughing and said, ‘I’ll try too,’ then he started,” he said.
Despite that miss against Poland, Neymar revealed that the reason behind the miss was because Messi ditched the technique he taught him.
“In the World Cup, for example, he scored several penalty goals like that. The only one he didn’t hit while looking at the goalkeeper, he missed,” he added.
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