A Lionel Messi hat-trick ensured Argentina came from behind to win in Ecuador and avoid missing a World Cup finals for the first time since 1970.<\/p>\n
The 2014 runners up began the day sixth in the group and needing a top-four place to qualify automatically.<\/p>\n
They made a terrible start in Quito, losing a goal inside 38 seconds, but fought back with Messi to the fore.<\/p>\n
“Luckily the nationality of the best player in the world is Argentinian,” said coach Jorge Sampaoli.<\/p>\n
“We must be sure everything does not depend on Leo [Messi] but today he brought his great ability.<\/p>\n
“I told the group: Messi did not owe the World Cup to Argentina, but football owed the World Cup to Messi. We should help him be in the World Cup.”<\/p>\n
The Barcelona forward equalised in the high-altitude Ecuadorian capital after 12 minutes when he linked up with Paris St-Germain midfielder Angel di Maria and stabbed home.<\/p>\n
The five-time world player of the year’s second goal came eight minutes later with a powerful strike from the edge of the area before a fine solo goal in the second half sealed the victory and Argentina’s passage to Russia.<\/p>\n
However,\u00a0Chile\u00a0<\/b>– the winners of the last two Copa America titles – are out after losing 3-0 in Brazil.<\/p>\n
Brazil had already qualified and Luis Suarez scored twice as\u00a0Uruguay\u00a0<\/b>beat Bolivia 4-2 to qualify, with\u00a0Colombia<\/b>\u00a0also advancing after a 1-1 draw in Peru.<\/p>\n
Peru<\/b>\u00a0finished fifth in South American qualifying and will now meet New Zealand in a two-legged play-off.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Lionel Messi hat-trick ensured Argentina came from behind to win in Ecuador and avoid missing a World Cup finals for the first time since 1970. The 2014 runners up began the day sixth in the group and needing a top-four place to qualify automatically. They made a terrible start in Quito, losing a goal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-361023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=361023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361023\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=361023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=361023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=361023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}