Messi equalled the third worst defeat of his career against PSG. Moreover, the 4-0 first-half score was the biggest half-time deficit for the Argentine in his entire professional career.
Leo Messi’s farewell to the Club World Cup was harsh and very negative. The Rosarino star said goodbye to the tournament with a heavy 4-0 defeat against PSG in a match in which the result was the best thing, as the French side did not want to rub salt in the wound in the second half and settled for the already heavy scoreline they achieved in the first half.
Despite this, the match against the French is now part of the black history of Leo Messi, who recorded his worst defeat at half-time in his entire professional career, having never gone into the break with a four-goal deficit.
Until now, the Rosarino’s worst first half had come in the now legendary 2-8 defeat by Bayern Munich against Barcelona in the quarter-finals of the 2019-20 Champions League. In that game, the No 10 went into the break with a 1-4 deficit.
Moreover, the 4-0 defeat suffered Sunday has become Messi’s third worst defeat as a professional. The first, precisely, is the aforementioned 2-8, a scoreline that Paris Saint-Germain threatened to beat and which they could surely have put behind them if they had needed to, but Luis Enrique’s men didn’t want to rub salt in the wound.
After that game, the silver in Messi’s ranking of horrors goes to that famous 6-1 loss to Bolivia in April 2009, his biggest defeat for Argentina over the years.
The 4-0 defeat at this Club World Cup is now on the podium of the eight-time Ballon d’Or winner’s biggest defeats, equalling those suffered against Germany at the 2010 World Cup, against Bayern in the first leg of the 2012-13 Champions League quarter-finals, against Athletic in the first leg of the 2015 Spanish Super Cup, against PSG in the first leg of the 2016-17 Champions League round of 16 and, of course, against Liverpool in the second leg of the 2018-19 Champions League semi-finals.