WATCH: Australian footballers fanboy over Lionel Messi after the Round of 16 fixture

The FIFA World Cup 2022 knockout games started on December 3. The teams from all continents have advanced to the Round of 16. Three teams from the Asia Pacific region – Australia, Japan, and South Korea – reached the knockout stages which previously only had two teams back in 2002 and 2010. Two African teams as well – Senegal and Morocco – also reached the knockout stages, last this thing happened in 2014. 

“Australian players were fanboying over Messi after the match,” read the caption of the video. In the video, the Australian Football team clicks pictures with Argentina skipper Lionel Messi after getting eliminated in the Round of 16 of the FIFA World Cup.

Watch it here:

My family is always present, my children especially: Lionel Messi

Since the video has uploaded, it has managed to gather 2 million views. “Who isn’t a fan of Messi? Even Cristiano Ronaldo is but he denies it in public,” wrote a Twitter user. 

This comes after Messi marked his 1,000th professional game with his first goal in the knockout stage of a World Cup, leading Argentina into the quarterfinals with a 2-1 win over Australia. Messi has now scored 789 goals that might yet reach a crescendo on December 18 by winning the soccer’s biggest tournament in his fifth and likely last World Cup. 

After the match, Messi was shown a video of his wife Antonela Roccuzzo and children (Thiago, Mateo, and Ciro) celebrating his first-half goal vs Australia. In watching the video, Messi smiled and looked very happy. During the post-match reaction, he said:

“My family is always present, my children especially because they are grown up and understand everything. Today seeing them from the inside how they feel and how they live is spectacular. They are excited and happy”.

The Netherlands defeated the United States of America 3-1 and Argentina defeated Australia 2-0 in their Round of 16 matches respectively. In the quarterfinals, Argentina will face the Netherlands at Lusail Stadium. Louis van Gaal was the Dutch manager in the 2014 World Cup, where Argentina defeated them on penalties in the semi-final.