Lionel Messi created a new Copa America record after helping defending champions Argentina to a 2-0 win against Canada in the opening match of the tournament on Thursday night.
\nForwards Julian Alvarez and Lautaro Martinez scored second-half goals to seal the Group A victory.
\nAlvarez broke the deadlock in the 49th minute with Martinez ensuring victory two minutes from time.<\/p>\n
Messi marked his record 35th match in his seventh Copa America tournament, surpassing Chilean goalkeeper Sergio Livingstone\u2019s record of 34 appearances between 1942 and 1953. Messi made his first appearance in the Copa America in the 2007 edition.
\nAlso Messi is the first player to have an assist in seven different Copa Am\u00e9ricas<\/p>\n
After a challenging first 45 minutes, the breakthrough came when Messi\u2019s pass led Alexis Mac Allister into the box.
\nThe midfielder collided with oncoming Canadian goalkeeper Maxime Crepeau, allowing the ball to slip free for Alvarez to end his 13-match international goal drought.
\nAlvarez\u2019s last goals came during the 2022 World Cup semi-finals against Croatia.
\nMessi came close to finding the back of the net in the 65th minute but his shot was saved by Crepeau and his rebound effort was headed away by defender Derek Cornelius.<\/p>\n
He had another chance in the 80th minute but his shot rolled just wide.
\nMessi then set up substitute Martinez for Argentina\u2019s second, Serie A\u2019s top goalscorer squeezing his shot under Crepeau.<\/p>\n
Chile and Peru, the other teams in Group A, play their opener on Friday in Arlington, Texas.<\/p>\n
In the group\u2019s next set of fixtures on Tuesday, Argentina face Chile while Canada take on Peru.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lionel Messi created a new Copa America record after helping defending champions Argentina to a 2-0 win against Canada in the opening match of the tournament on Thursday night. Forwards Julian Alvarez and Lautaro Martinez scored second-half goals to seal the Group A victory. Alvarez broke the deadlock in the 49th minute with Martinez ensuring […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":9512,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175],"tags":[374],"class_list":["post-35608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-messi"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35608"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35619,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35608\/revisions\/35619"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}