BUENOS AIRES: Lionel Messi megic once again showed that how dependent Argentina on “messidona” as the Barcelona forward grabbed a hat-trick in their 4-0 World Cup warm-up win over Haiti on Tuesday.
With Javier Mascherano who making his 143rd emergence placed him one ahead of Javier Zanetti as Argentina's most acclaimed player, Messi received the opener from the penalty spot after 17 minutes.
He doubled their lead 12 minutes into the second half with a simple tap-in after the goalkeeper could only ward off a header, scored Argentina's third after 65 minutes, and then set up Sergio Aguero to fire it fourth goal just two minutes later.
Argentina was unsuccessful to add to their tally but should have been further to the lead against Haiti, whose sole participation at the World Cup finals came in 1974 and are ranked 108th in the world, 103 places below them in the world rankings.
"More than the result we were able to say goodbye to our fans and show that we are going to Russia with hope," Messi asserted as quoted by TOI.
"We're not going as favourites because we had a complicated time in the qualifiers, but we are training well and we will give it our all, “he added.