{"id":53939,"date":"2025-09-07T00:29:22","date_gmt":"2025-09-06T21:29:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/?p=53939"},"modified":"2025-09-07T00:29:22","modified_gmt":"2025-09-06T21:29:22","slug":"messi-brace-for-argentina-downs-venezuela-in-emotional-world-cup-farewell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/2025\/09\/07\/messi-brace-for-argentina-downs-venezuela-in-emotional-world-cup-farewell\/","title":{"rendered":"Messi brace for Argentina downs Venezuela in emotional World Cup farewell"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Lionel Messi made sure he had good memories of playing a home qualifier with Argentina\u2019s national team for the last time in his illustrious career.<\/p>\n<p>The former Barcelona forward scored twice on Thursday in Argentina\u2019s 3-0 victory over Venezuela in front of a raucous sellout crowd that had gathered at Estadio Monumental to bid him farewell.<br \/>\nThe Argentina captain scored in the 39th and 80th minutes, and Lautaro Martinez added a goal in the 76th.<\/p>\n<p>Messi now has 36 goals in South American World Cup qualifiers and remains the all-time scoring leader.<\/p>\n<p>His Inter Miami teammate, Luis Suarez, has 29 goals in continental qualifying, but he has retired from Uruguay\u2019s national team. Bolivia\u2019s Marcelo Moreno Martins is third with 22.<br \/>\nLooking ahead, Messi clarified he will only compete in next year\u2019s World Cup if he feels physically fit.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m excited, eager. It\u2019s day by day, feeling the sensations. If I feel good, I enjoy it; if not, I\u2019d rather not be there,\u201d he said, adding that the nine months until the tournament kicks off \u201cis a long time\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lionel Messi made sure he had good memories of playing a home qualifier with Argentina\u2019s national team for the last time in his illustrious career. The former Barcelona forward scored twice on Thursday in Argentina\u2019s 3-0 victory over Venezuela in front of a raucous sellout crowd that had gathered at Estadio Monumental to bid him &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53940,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53939"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53939\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53941,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53939\/revisions\/53941"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}