There was a frosty exchange between Lionel Messi and Robert Lewandowski during Argentina and Poland’s clash, but the pair seemed to make up post-match.
Messi ignored a handshake from the Poland striker, who brought the seven-time Ballon d’Or winner down late on during the World Cup clash.
But after the match it looks like there was no bad blood with the Paris Saint-Germain forward and Barcelona star shaking hands, sharing an embrace and having a brief conversation on the Stadium 974 pitch.
Anxiety would’ve been high for Lewandowski at the time of the not-so pleasant exchange, with Poland’s status in the Round of 16 hanging on a knife edge.
Goals from Alexis Mac Allister and Julian Alvarez sealed a 2-0 win for Argentina, which gave Mexico a chance to nip in to finish second in Group C.
Their 2-0 lead over Saudi Arabia put Mexico level on points, goal difference, goals scored and goals against.
However, Poland were due to go through having picked up fewer yellow cards than Mexico in the tournament.
In the end ill discipline didn’t matter as Saudi Arabia scored late to ensure Poland went through on goal difference.
Lewandowski struggled to make an impact on a match which saw Poland ride their luck with Argentina missing a catalogue of chances – the most notable opportunity seeing Wojciech Szczesny save a penalty from Messi.
And Poland’s display didn’t impress talkSPORT’s Jason Cundy one bit.
“That is one of the worst performances, bearing in mind what they needed, they literally hung on,” Cundy said on The Sports Bar.
“So you can imagine they’re walking along at the cliff edge, about five metres, all of a sudden they’ve got three metres… next thing you know they’re hanging on by their fingernails. How has that happened?
“They were shocking. Argentina could’ve won it by more. Poland were topping the group and they should’ve gone out but they managed to scrape through.”
Poland face France in the Round of 16, with fellow Sports Bar host Jamie O’Hara saying it’s a bye for the reigning champions.
If France wipe the floor with Poland there may not be such a pleasant exchange between Lewandowski and Kylian Mbappe post-match.
talkSPORT World Cup 2022 Coverage
talkSPORT is bringing you wall-to-wall coverage of the 2022 World Cup.
We are broadcasting all 64 games in the tournament live, with over 600 hours of coverage across our network.
You can tune in to talkSPORT and talkSPORT 2 via our free online streaming service at talkSPORT.com.
talkSPORT is widely available across the UK via DAB digital radio and on 1089 or 1053 AM.
You can also download the talkSPORT app, or ask your smart speaker to play talkSPORT.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)