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FIFA World cup 2018 had many shockers including the German exit, Spanish fall to the hosts, Italy and Chile's failure to qualify for the tournament to name a few. But when we analyze the performance of Argentina right from the qualifying rounds, their exit from the world cup looked more of an evident and expected result than any shocker.
The South American team was struggling in every match and were on the verge of creating history for all the wrong reasons. Argentina had failed to qualify the World Cup only once in 1970 and it would have been for the second time if they had failed to qualify for 2018 World cup. It was all thanks to Lionel Messi's heroics in the last qualifier that the team managed to qualify for the international tournament.
But the dream of the magician, Lionel Messi, was short-lived as Argentina were knocked out in the round of 16 of the FIFA World Cup by France. Sampaoli who coached the Argentinian team was sacked from the post immediately after the World cup for his complete failure in bringing the glory days back to Argentine Football.
The former manager addressed the media stating that he believed that Lionel Messi has what it takes to win the World cup in Qatar in 2022. But 2022 is far into the future and for now it's uncertain if Messi will even return to the international team again.
Lionel Messi has already returned once from his retirement in 2016 after the star forward was completely broken and had retired because of defeats in 3 straight finals of major tournaments of 2015, 2016 Copa America and 2014 World Cup.
Messi has not featured for the Argentina squad since the 2018 World Cup and had also kept himself out of the squad for the matches in the recently concluded International break. The interim coach allocated by Argentina Football Association, Lionel Scaloni, went on to say to the media before the September friendlies that he had been in conversation with Messi and decided not to call him up for the matches. However, he denied having spoken to him about his future plans.
Not just the Argentine fans but also the entire football world have their eyes on the Barcelona man, wondering if he will return to international duty again.
