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Chicago: Lionel Messi scored twice and assisted on another goal in his first international start since November and Argentina outclassed Guatemala 4-1 to complete its 2024 Copa America preparations. Messi went the full 90 minutes for manager Lionel Scaloni after playing 35 off the bench in a 1-0 win over fellow Copa America contenders Ecuador on Sunday in Chicago.<\/p>\n
He previously missed a pair of international friendlies in March with a hamstring issue that has also contributed to his half-dozen absences for Inter Miami in MLS play.<\/p>\n
But his sharp performance Friday \u2014 in which he also struck the woodwork with a free kick and contributed to a sequence leading to a penalty kick goal \u2014 should ease Argentine concerns ahead of next Thursday\u2019s group play opener against Canada in Atlanta.<\/p>\n
Lautaro Martinez also scored twice for the defending Copa America and World Cup champions against a Guatemala side that sits 108th in FIFA\u2019s world rankings. That included Argentina\u2019s goal from the penalty spot, a role Messi typically assumes during tournament play.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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[ad_1] \u00a0 Chicago: Lionel Messi scored twice and assisted on another goal in his first international start since November and Argentina outclassed Guatemala 4-1 to complete its 2024 Copa America preparations. Messi went the full 90 minutes for manager Lionel Scaloni after playing 35 off the bench in a 1-0 win over fellow Copa America […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29935,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-29934","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Lionel-Messi-scores-twice-in-return-to-Argentina-lineup-in-4-1-win-over-Guatemala.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29934"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29934\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29936,"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29934\/revisions\/29936"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}