Hindustan Surkhiyan Desk:Mexican skipper Rafael Marquez had more than one reason to celebrate their win against defending champions Germany. Where, on one hand his team recorded a historic win, on the other hand, he became the third player to play at five World Cups. Mexico defeated Germany by 1-0 and created ripples by defeating the world number 1 team being on the 15th spot themselves.
Though he came in as a substitute in the 74th minute, he is now equal to a fellow Mexican Antonio Carbajal and Germany’s Lothar Matthaus. The 39-year-old made his World Cup debut in 2002 and has gone on to represent his team in 2006, 2010, 2014 and now finally in 2018.
Marquez has been a part of Barcelona from 2003 till 2010. He has also played for Mexican team Atlas where he started playing in 1996. He wants to call it time after the ongoing World Cup.
It can be argued that Italy’s Gianluigi Buffon should be on that list of players but though he was part of the 1996 squad, he did not play any match.
In a thriller match where both the teams where on an all-out attacking stance, Hirving Lozano’s 35th minute goal happened to be the only goal of the match which led to Mexico’s win against Germany on Sunday at the Luzhniki stadium. German strikers constantly missed the goal post by inches which ultimately took them far away from victory.
Playing counter-attacking game, Mexico gave a hard time to Germany’s skipper and goalkeeper Manuel Neuer. They sought opportunity and got one when the German attack broke, and Javier Hernandez quickly got into action and found Lozano available to take a pass who went on to break the defenders Mats Hummels and Jerome Boateng and finally made the ball reach the back of the net past Neuer.
Mexico had another opportunity and would have got a comfortable lead, but Carlos Vela missed the post. In the second half, while Mexico became defensive, Germany attacked with all their strength but couldn’t create any difference. Germany made changes in their squad as the 90th minute came closer, but Mexico remained firm and recorded a historic win.
