Escuche esta historia
--:--
4:20
Argentina champion of the “Finalissima”
This Wednesday , the third edition of the Conmebol-UEFA Champions Cup 2022, better known as the "Finalissima", which brings together the champion of the last Copa América against the winner of the European Championship, in this case Argentina and Italy, took place at Wembley Stadium.. The first two were in 1985 and 1993 under the name of Copa Artemio Franchi.
The last one was also played between Argentina and Denmark, which was won by Argentina under the leadership of Diego Maradona. On this occasion, before the match began, Javier Zanetti, ambassador of this edition, appeared with the ball and the trophy.
Lionel Scaloni came out with the entire arsenal. Martinez in goal; Molina, Romero, Otamendi, Tagliafico in defense; De Paul, Guido Rodríguez, Lo Celso in midfield; and Messi, Di María and Lautaro Martínez in attack.
For his part, Roberto Mancini presented Donnarumma in goal; Di Lorenzo, Bonucci, Chiellini, Emerson in the defense line; Pessina, Jorginho, Barella in midfield; and Bernardeschi, Belotti, Raspadori in attack.
After singing the anthems of each country, the match began. Quickly in the first minute, Di María dared to take a shot from midfield, trying to surprise the Italian goalkeeper, his teammate at PSG, but the ball went wide.
In the first minutes, Argentina pressed up front, in addition to controlling the ball and initiatives in attack. Messi achieves a free kick near the Donnarumma area, but when he takes it he hits the barrier. At minute 12, Italy responded with an attack through Raspadori, who took a shot from the edge of the area and the ball was saved by Martínez with no problems.
From that moment on, Italy controlled the match in the following minutes with a leisurely game, although sometimes they tried to attack the albiceleste area with Raspadori's crosses looking for Belotti, but the South Americans managed to neutralize the Italian initiatives.
However, at minute 27, those led by Scaloni steal the ball on their own ground and take a quick counterattack that ends in a pass to Messi at the edge of the area. The '10' receives, holds the mark, turns and changes pace to enter almost to the bottom line where he takes a creeping center for Lautaro Martínez to push it and score the partial 0-1.
After the goal, Italy tried to equalize with several attacks that ended with crosses into the area, which sometimes ended in offside and other times Belotti did not arrive. But at 45+1', Lautaro Martínez receives a ball, gets out of Bonucci's mark and takes a pass, appealing to Di María's speed, when he receives, he takes out a Vaseline that beats Donnarumma and makes it 0-2.
The first half would end with that marker. Going into the second, Mancini made three changes. He took out Chiellini, Belotti and Bernardeschi to put in Lazzari, Locatelli and Scamacca. Captain Chiellini played his last game with the national team, thus saying goodbye to a 'legend' of the 'Azurris'.
In the first minutes each team tried to control the ball, but the inaccuracies were characteristic, so much so that Bonucci almost scored an own goal due to a missed pass. At minute 56, Locatelli tried with a shot from medium distance, which was deflected by a defender and Martínez stopped without problems.
At 59', Otamandi sends a long pass that Di María controls, the 'noodle' cuts back and takes a shot looking for the top corner, but Donnarumma deflects for a corner. Two minutes later, Di María tries again, but again the goalkeeper stops the shot.
A string of albiceleste actions would come in the following minutes. At 61' Messi sends a cross where Lo Celso arrived at the second post, but the player sends it to the side of the net. Then Messi at 65', 66' and 68' would have several opportunities where the Argentine star would finish off on goal, but Donnarumma again stopped each action.
The minutes would go by and each coach would move the bench. At 89' Lo Celso and Di María leave, so that Dybala and González can enter. At 90 + 4 'the Argentines come out with a counter directed by Messi and when they reach the edge of the area, the ball falls to Dybala, who took a trailing left-footed shot that ended up beating the goalkeeper to score the final 0-3.
The referee would blow the whistle for the end of the match and Argentina becomes the champion of the 'Finalissima', with its sights set on the World Cup in Qatar to be held in the months of November and December of this year.
