Messi fires hat-trick to warn Nigeria

Lionel Messi showed he is Argentina’s driving force as he scored a hat-trick in their 4-0 World Cup warm-up win over Haiti on Tuesday.

The Argentina captain who has not hidden his desire to win the World Cup trophy got the opener from the penalty spot after 17 minutes.

He doubled their lead 12 minutes into the second half with a simple tap-in after the goalkeeper could only parry a header. And in the 65th minute, Messi grabbed his third of the night before setting up Sergio Aguero for the fourth two minutes later.

“More than the result we were able to say goodbye to our fans and show that we are going to Russia with hope.

“We’re not going as favourites because we had a complicated time in the qualifiers, but we are training well and we will give it our all,”Messi said at the post-match conference.

Argentina move to Barcelona in the coming days for the final phase of preparations before flying out to Russia where they kick start their World Cup campaign against Iceland on June 16, Croatia on June 21 and Nigeria on June 26.