Lionel Messi reveals the good luck charm he wore for Nigeria match

Argentina captain Lionel Messi revealed that he had worn a symbol of good luck around his ankle after his side's 2-1 win over Nigeria on Tuesday.

Rama Pantorotto, an Argentine television host, gave Messi a red thread given to him by his wife after Argentina's 3-0 loss to Croatia last week. The red string is known as an instrument of protection to negate evil in various cultures and Messi showed Pantorotto that he had indeed kept the red thread and had worn it for Argentina's must-win match with Nigeria. https://twitter.com/ramapantorotto/status/1011781350884601856 Argentina won the match 2-1 and Messi added that he felt before the game that God would not allow Argentina to exit the World Cup in the group stages and that he hadn't remembered suffering so much with the national team in the past.

“I knew that God was with us and would not leave us out [of the competition],” Messi said.

“I don’t remember having ever suffered so much, because of the situation and because of what was at stake. It was a huge release for all of us.

“We had been through difficult days because of the result in the previous game, the situation we were in and because of a lot of things that came out. But fortunately we were able to achieve our objective.

"We knew we would do so. We didn’t expect to suffer so much but we were confident that we would get through. And thank God it happened.”