Argentina booked their place in the World Cup final after a magical performance from Lionel Messi inspired them to a comfortable victory over Croatia.
Lionel Scaloni’s side will have the chance to win a third World Cup trophy on Sunday thanks to a goal from Messi and a brace from Julian Álvarez.
Croatia appeared to have settled the better of the two sides, dominating possession in the early stages without testing Emí Martínez in the Argentina goal.
His counter-part Dominik Livaković was alert to turn away Enzo Fernández’s effort from 25 yards out in the game’s first real flashpoint but Livaković would soon turn into from hero to zero after giving away a penalty in the 33rd minute after bringing Álvarez down in the box.
Messi stepped up and dispatched the spot-kick into the top corner to break the deadlock and overtake Gabriel Batistuta to become his country’s record goalscorer at a World Cup finals with 11 goals.
Argentina doubled their advantage six minutes later to leave Zlatko Dalić’s side with a mammoth task, with Álvarez striding into the area following a swift counter-attack and seeing the ball ricochet into his path after some slack defending before poking home from eight yards out.
Dalić turned to Mislav Oršić and Nikola Vlasić from the bench at half-time but Croatia failed to gather the momentum required to get back into the game.
There was to be one more magical moment from Argentina’s number 10 to wrap the semi-final up in the 69th minute.
Messi received the ball at the corner of the area, galloped towards the byline before turning Joško Gvardiol inside-out and laying the ball into the path of Álvarez to slide into the bottom corner to make it three.
Argentina reach the final for the first time since 2014 and will meet the winners of tomorrow’s other semi-final meeting between France and Morocco in Lusail in five days’ time.