Why Wayne Rooney thinks Argentina will win today: ‘They are a working-class team, they fight for Messi, they are scrappers’

“They are almost a working-class team, in the sense they’re stubborn, hard to beat, and they’ll fight — fight for Messi, fight to stay in a game knowing that if they do, their captain will win it for them. They are a team of scrappers who just don’t know how to give in,” said Rooney in his Sunday Times column.

Nothing has changed. 🤷🏻‍♂️🐐 https://t.co/j5GjcKto13

— Wayne Rooney (@WayneRooney) December 14, 2022

While Rooney’s praise for Messi has been ongoing since 2012, his recent comments on the Argentine haven’t sat well with Cristiano Ronaldo fans on social media. Rooney wrote in his column on how both are integral to each other and there was a time when one’s performance would instigate the other to further greatness.

“I admire both him and Cristiano for going about things their own way. Cristiano openly comes out and says, “I am the best, I want to be the best.” When Messi talks he focuses more on the team and the trophies he wants to win. Neither is right or wrong. It is how two different personalities motivate themselves,” said Rooney. “In some ways they needed each other and, deep down, I suspect they have enjoyed their rivalry. When Cristiano went to Real Madrid they pushed each other: Cristiano would score two goals on a Saturday, Messi would score two the next day and they made each other reach even greater heights, and score more goals,” also wrote Rooney.

He then used Messi’s goal against Croatia, the one where he turned 20-year-old centre-back Josko Gvardiol around and then passed to Julian Alvarez for an all-time great assist, to compare him to Diego Maradona.

Argentina’s Lionel Messi celebrates scoring their first goal. (Reuters)

“He has what Diego Maradona had in terms of the ability to go past players and then execute the full range of skills — pass, shoot, cross — and he has everything in terms of vision. You saw it with the goal he set up for Julián Álvarez against Croatia. As a defender in the situation where Messi took possession you are supposed to show him the outside, and that’s what Josko Gvardiol did — so Messi just went down the line, turned Gvardiol this way and that, then went inside him anyway before producing the perfect cutback for Álvarez to score the third goal,” said Rooney.

Speaking about the World Cup final, he pointed out that both Messi and Mbappe would be operating on the same flank and because both aren’t known for their defensive shifts, the onus to defend would lie more on their teammates. “Their team-mates are going to have to deal with this and I think Argentina will defend more for Messi than France will for Mbappé,” said Rooney in his column.

He also professed that there was only one occasion where he took a match ball when he hadn’t scored a hat-trick and it was this UCL final. Rooney also said that he got the ball signed by Messi, Pedro and David Villa and later signed the ball himself, as memorabilia from the game.

“Why would I do something like that? We’d lost a final and I was gutted but I also had this sense of having been part of something special. It was a feeling that I had just shared a pitch with some of the greatest players who ever played. Barcelona were incredible and Messi was the catalyst for all of it,” wrote Rooney.