{"id":37366,"date":"2026-06-17T16:18:59","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T14:18:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=37366"},"modified":"2026-06-17T16:18:59","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T14:18:59","slug":"my-tears-after-first-goal-were-caused-by-personal-difficult-days-messi","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/my-tears-after-first-goal-were-caused-by-personal-difficult-days-messi\/","title":{"rendered":"My tears after first goal were caused by personal difficult days: Messi"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>An emotional Lionel Messi was wiping his tears with his shirt \u200bafter scoring Argentina&#8217;s first goal against Algeria in \u200cthe World Cup, a strike that marked the beginning of a memorable performance where he netted \u200bthrice to secure a 3-0 win.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>But \u200bwhile his first World Cup hat-trick \u2060had many Argentine fans in tears of \u200bjoy, Messi said he was crying for \u200ba personal reason unrelated to the sport.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;Why did I cry? It was something completely unrelated \u200bto football. I went through some \u200bdifficult days,&#8221; said Messi, who is playing in a record \u200csixth \u2060World Cup, after Tuesday&#8217;s match.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;But I&#8217;m grateful to the entire delegation and my team-mates because they were always by \u200bmy side, \u200bgiving \u2060me a lot of strength to help me get through \u200bit.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Messi, who turns 39 next \u200bweek, \u2060has equalled Miroslav Klose&#8217;s record of scoring 16 goals at the World Cup.<\/div>\n<div>Argentina will \u2060continue \u200btheir title defence with \u200ba Group J game against Austria on Monday.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":37368,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-37366","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Argentina will \u2060continue \u200btheir title defence with \u200ba Group J game against Austria on Monday.","published_date":"","news_description":"Argentina will \u2060continue \u200btheir title defence with \u200ba Group J game against Austria on Monday.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/37366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/37366\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37369,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/37366\/revisions\/37369"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=37366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}