69,000 tickets were sold for the big meeting between Brazil and Argentina in the World Cup qualifying match at the Maracana Stadium in Rio de Janeiro. But the packed arena had to wait 27 minutes after the scheduled time before the football match could be kicked off.
When the national anthems were played before the match, fights broke out between Argentine and Brazilian fans. The Argentine players tried to calm their fans without success.
The police used batons to try to break up the fighting. Argentina goalkeeper Emiliano “Dibu” Martinez ran to the railing in front of the away stand and tried to climb up to ask the police to stop the beating.
Messi led the exodus
In the end, Argentina captain Lionel Messi took his team down to the dressing room and announced that they would not return until the situation calmed down.
After the match, Messi said that there were several players who had family in the stands and that the players were more worried about them than about playing the match.
– We did it (went to the dressing room) because it was the way we could calm down the atmosphere. From down there we couldn’t do much, we saw how the police beat people, said Lionel Messi.
Argentina’s Lionel Messi left the pitch and took his team down to the dressing room. Bruna Prado/AP/TT
The team returned after spending 22 minutes in the locker room and warmed up for more minutes before the game finally, 27 minutes late, could be kicked off.
The first half was uneventful and scoreless. The only shot on target came in the 44th minute when Brazil’s Gabriel Martinelli headed a loose rebound from Argentina goalkeeper Martinez back towards the goal. The ball looked to go in but was stopped on the goal line by Cristian Romero in the away team.
Nock goal by the veteran
Brazil started the second half with more vigor and had a shot near the post after 54 minutes. However, there was no goal that time.
Instead, it was Argentina’s veteran defender Nicolás Otamendi who scored the game’s first goal when he headed the ball in after a corner in the 63rd minute. 1-0 stood then the rest of the match. Brazil were forced to play with ten men at the end of the match after substitute midfielder Joelinton was sent off in the 81st minute.
On the night of Wednesday, a qualifying match was also played between Colombia and Paraguay, which ended 1–0, and Uruguay beat Bolivia 3–0. The match between Ecuador and Chile ended 1–0.
Argentina leads the South American qualifying group and has 15 points after six games played. In shared second place are Uruguay and Colombia with 13 points.
Brazil, who have lost three qualifying matches in a row, are in sixth place with just seven points.
2023-11-22 05:22:59
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