{"id":12387,"date":"2026-07-16T20:05:28","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T14:35:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/slsports.lk\/?p=12387"},"modified":"2026-07-16T20:05:29","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T14:35:29","slug":"messis-promise-to-his-country-before-the-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/slsports.lk\/si\/messis-promise-to-his-country-before-the-final\/","title":{"rendered":"Messi&#8217;s promise to his country before the final"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Argentina&#8217;s stunning victory over England in the World Cup semi-finals has been the hottest topic in the world of football. Argentina fought hard throughout the match and managed to turn the match around with a 2-1 win in the final minutes. But what caught everyone&#8217;s attention more than this turnaround on the field was Lionel Messi&#8217;s emotional speech after the match.<br>Leader Lionel Messi dedicated this huge victory entirely to Argentina&#8217;s eternal football hero, the late Diego Maradona. He said that this victory was a &#8220;special gift&#8221; to the wonderful character who brought the World Cup to Argentina in 1986.<br>Messi added that Maradona, wherever he is, would be very happy about this huge victory.<br>This long-standing rivalry between Argentina and England dates back to 1986. The memory of those two famous goals that Maradona scored against England is still fresh in everyone&#8217;s minds. So, it would be fair to say that with these words from Messi, the fans&#8217; memories went back to that past.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Argentina&#8217;s stunning victory over England in the World Cup semi-finals has been the hottest topic in the world of football. Argentina fought hard throughout the match and managed to turn the match around with a 2-1 win in the final minutes. But what caught everyone&#8217;s attention more than this turnaround on the field was Lionel&#8230;<\/p>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":12389,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,68],"tags":[537,3264,250,73,134],"class_list":["post-12387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football","category-international-football","tag-argentina","tag-diego-maradona","tag-lionel-messi","tag-slsports","tag-sports-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Messi&#039;s promise to his country before the final - SL Sports<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/slsports.lk\/si\/messis-promise-to-his-country-before-the-final\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"si_LK\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Messi&#039;s promise to his country before the final - SL Sports\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Argentina&#8217;s stunning victory over England in the World Cup semi-finals has been the hottest topic in the world of football. Argentina fought hard throughout the match and managed to turn the match around with a 2-1 win in the final minutes. 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