Leo Messi sounded all the alarms after his thigh repeatedly touched his left leg with clear signs of discomfort. After a dispute against the Croatian defence, the white ’10’ stopped to touch the back of his thigh
The concern didn’t take long to become apparent on Scaloni’s bench. The team doctor left the technical area up to three times to ask about his condition. Despite not going forward at the time, Messi insisted several times on the same gesture. After the break, cameras again caught him reaching for the injured part
The alarming gestures he made didn’t stop him from punctuating the game with a superbly executed penalty kick as he put him on the same team and shortened the play to serve third, in clear evidence that it was an intimidating one