Dutch striker: 'Messi disrespected me'
"I just want to shake Messi's hand after the game," Weghorst told TyC Sports (Argentina). "As a player, I have a lot of respect for Messi. But he pushed my hand away and didn't want to talk. I don't speak Spanish well. But Messi used words that disrespected me and that made me angry. Really disappointed".
Weghorst came on in the 78th minute and scored after just five minutes with a header from a Steven Berghuis cross. At the end of the second half, the 1.97 m tall striker pressed back in the penalty area and then sank to equalize 2-2 for the Netherlands.
After the match, while giving an interview to TyC Sports, Messi saw the Weghorst striker approaching, so he immediately scolded: "What are you looking at, you idiot?". Despite being prevented by reporters, the 35-year-old superstar still tried to say: "Go somewhere else".
Several people, including former striker Sergio Aguero, asked Weghorst to leave to avoid tension. "We were standing on the way to the dressing room when Weghorst started shouting 'Hey, hey, Messi'. Leo looked around and asked what Weghorst said," Aguero said. "He said 'Come and talk'. So I stepped in and asked to shut up. I said 'Why are you talking to Messi like that?' Then Weghorst said to me, 'Never tell me to shut up'."
The match at Lusail was tense, causing the referee to draw up to 18 yellow cards - unprecedented in a World Cup match.
Messi made his mark on both Argentina's goals. In the penalty shootout, the Argentine captain successfully kicked the first ball, creating momentum for a 4-2 victory. While some of his Argentine teammates provoked the opponent, Messi went straight to the Dutch technical area, pointing while telling Louis Van Gaal and his assistant Edgar Davids that before the game they said too many bad things in the media. about Argentina.
He then said: "Van Gaal said the Netherlands would play authentic football. But they only put tall players in and cross the ball to head."
This is Messi's second World Cup semi-final with Argentina, after being runner-up in 2014. They will meet Croatia at Lusail on the evening of December 13, to compete for a place in the 2022 World Cup final.
