BEIJING: Lionel Messi delighted Argentina fans in Beijing when he scored the fastest goal of his international career, netting after 79 seconds as the world champions beat Australia 2-0 in a friendly at a raucous Workers’ Stadium on Thursday.

Fans immediately got their money’s worth when Argentina won the ball in Australia’s half in the second minute and Enzo Fernandez found Messi, who sidestepped two defenders before beating the keeper with a curling shot from outside the box.

Messi, who last week confirmed he wanted to move to American side Inter Miami, has now scored in seven straight games for Argentina and the country’s talisman has shown no signs of slowing down ahead of his 36th birthday next week.

“We always enjoy being with the national team,” Messi said. “It was complicated to play because of the heat and humidity, but beyond everything we continued with the same idea.”

Messi has been the focus of attention ever since he landed in Beijing last week.

The Argentina captain has legions of supporters in China where football is popular and fans often look further afield for teams to follow given the poor state of the men’s national side.

The areas around the stadium and the hotel where Messi and his team-mates have been staying have been awash with people wearing replica Argentina jerseys in recent days.

Hundreds queued outside the hotel each day in the hope of catching a glimpse of Messi leaving for training.

A sea of blue-and-white had greeted the teams as they stepped out onto the pitch with an overwhelming majority of the 68,000 capacity crowd sporting Argentina colours.

“Today the stadium looked like we were playing in Argentina,” said Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni of the partisan crowd.

He toasted the win in a “difficult game” for his team, adding: “We continued to compete, which is the best thing this team has in its DNA.”

Argentina doubled their lead in the second half when Rodrigo De Paul floated in an enticing cross into the box and substitute German Pezzella found space between two defenders to fire home a free header.

Just before the corner was taken for the goal, a fan in a Messi jersey ran onto the pitch and briefly hugged the bemused Argentine, dodged several flailing security personnel, ran to the centre circle and high-fived goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez.

Roared on by the capacity crowd, he continued to outmanoeuvre and outpace stewards before running back to Australia’s box where they eventually got hold of him and took him away.

Thursday’s match was a re-run of the last-16 clash between Argentina and Australia at last winter’s World Cup in Qatar.

On that occasion, Messi scored a goal and tormented the Socceroos’ defence as the Albiceleste won 2-1.

Argentina went on to win the World Cup for the first time in 36 years.

The South Americans will round off their Asian tour on Monday when they play another friendly against Indonesia in Jakarta.

Elsewhere on Thursday, Takefusa Kubo scored one goal and set up two others as Japan thrashed El Salvador 6-0 in Toyota to pick up their first win since the World Cup.

Japan, aiming to win a record fifth Asian Cup title in Qatar in January, claimed their first win since losing to Croatia in the last 16 at the World Cup, following a draw against Uruguay and a defeat to Colombia in March friendlies.

Published in Dawn, June 16th, 2023