The seven-time Ballon d’Or winner was brought on after 53 minutes for Alvarez after recently making his comeback from injury. While the 36-year-old didn’t manage to add his name to the scoresheet, he hit the post twice and was just pleased to get back out on the pitch after his recent lay-off.
“I’m happy to play again and add minutes,” the iconic forward added. “It is always difficult to enter [from the bench] and even more so in such a tight game. The important thing is that we won and at times we played very well, especially in the first half.”
Argentina boss Scaloni admits it was ‘risky’ to play Messi after his time spent on the sidelines and says he will make a decision on whether to start their all-time record goalscorer against Peru on Tuesday.
“We will talk in the next few days. He has two more training sessions to continue collecting minutes and we will see,” he said. “It is not discounted that he plays, it is not discounted that he does not play – because I haven’t talked about that yet – but today I think it was risky that he could get more minutes than usual.”
