Ferdinand lauds Messi with ultimate World Cup praise after Argentina display

Lionel Messi's performance in Argentina's win over Australia on Saturday night was the best individual performance of the World Cup, according to Rio Ferdinand.

Messi starred as Argentina picked up a 2-1 victory in the last 16 to book a quarter-final against the Netherlands on Friday. The Paris Saint-Germain star opened the scoring with a typical Messi goal, exchanging passes before firing a curling left-footed shot into the bottom corner.

Argentina went 2-0 up thanks to a mistake from Mat Ryan which was seized upon by Julian Alvarez before Craig Goodwin's deflected effort made things interesting. Messi set up two brilliant chances for Lautaro Martinez to make the game safe, but the substitute could not take either and Garang Kuol nearly made them pay with a late opportunity for the Socceroos.

Messi was at his exhilarating best, drifting past players with ease while knitting play together for his side. His goal was his 987th in his 1,000th career match and had Ferdinand purring in the BBC studio after the full-time whistle.

"Messi has put on the best individual performance we've seen at this World Cup so far, by a mile," Ferdinand said. "Showboating, laying shots on a plate for teammates, and the crowd - it was almost god-like, after every single thing he does."

Alan Shearer added: "What a second half performance from him, and the first half with his goal. We've spoken about his ability many times before, the hunger and desire and ability to run with the ball attracts so many defenders to him which then frees up his teammates.

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"The story is on him but what a performance from Australia to come back into the game and that sort of epitomises them in this tournament. Lucky goal, but they gave it a right good go right until the end of their tournament. It could have gone to extra time if not for a fantastic save, but the best team won."

Messi turned on the style in the second half, with a few pieces of skill and runs from deep turning the Ahmad bin Ali Stadium into a raucous venue. Ferdinand was among the fans cheering him on.

"Honestly if we had a camera in here, the way we were jumping up and down," he added. "I've lost my voice screaming how is he doing this?

"He's embarrassing players but with his head up. You know a player goes through a cluster of players their head's down usually, but he's taking people on and seeing the pitch, his spacial awareness is phenomenal."