Tension is at its peak around England’s showdown with Argentina in the World Cup semifinal, and former English players too are full of confidence before the match. The most talked-about among them is former England midfielder Joe Cole, who has made some bold comments about Lionel Messi.
In a discussion on Netflix Sports with Gary Lineker, Alan Shearer and Micah Richards about the Argentina-England semifinal, Cole said: “We have to keep Messi asleep. We’ll keep him neutralized. I’m 100 percent sure.”
Hearing such comments, the others present immediately cautioned him. “Don’t say that now. That can be said later,” they said. But the former Chelsea and Liverpool star did not budge an inch from his position, saying confidently: “I’m saying it now, England will reach the World Cup final.”
Former defender Micah Richards, however, took a somewhat cautious stance, saying beating Argentina would be no easy task. “Argentina’s players are very clever and mentally very tough fighters. To beat them, England will have to play even better than usual. But our pace is greater than theirs. I believe we will win,” Richards said.
Interestingly, Joe Cole has publicly praised Lionel Messi several times in the past, even placing him above Cristiano Ronaldo. In a discussion before the World Cup, Cole had said: “I think Ronaldo perhaps thinks at night, if only he could be as perfect as Messi! Messi is the only footballer who has achieved everything there is to achieve in football.”
Meanwhile, another former England star, Gary Neville, gave his assessment of Argentina’s two center-backs, Cristian Romero and Lisandro Martinez. In Neville’s words: “I call them the world’s best and most volatile center-back pair. Sometimes they play brilliantly and win every ball, and the next moment they make mistakes that are hard to believe. But the moment they put on the Argentina jersey, they seem to take on another form.”
Argentina and England meet at the Atlanta Stadium in the United States at 1 a.m. Bangladesh time on Wednesday. Before this battle between two football superpowers, the war of words is heating up in equal measure.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report