{"id":589201,"date":"2026-04-06T13:46:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T13:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/589201\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T13:46:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T13:46:10","slug":"what-makes-lionel-messi-the-goat-argentina-inter-miami-icon-given-unstoppable-billing-by-formula-1-superstar-max-verstappen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/589201\/","title":{"rendered":"What makes Lionel Messi the GOAT? Argentina &#038; Inter Miami icon given &#8216;unstoppable&#8217; billing by Formula 1 superstar Max Verstappen"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;He knows how to read the game,&#8221; Verstappen said. &#8220;You see a lot of people, they need to run, they need to get in to score. He can score from wherever, whenever, and you think you can defend him, but you can&#8217;t. You cannot stop him. He will score when he seizes the opportunity. You simply can&#8217;t defend that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>To illustrate his point, Verstappen recalled one specific moment of magic from the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. During the heated quarter-final clash between Argentina and the Netherlands, Messi produced a sensational no-look through ball to set up Nahuel Molina for the opening goal, a play that left the entire Dutch defence stranded. &#8220;The ball he played against Holland at the last World Cup, you can&#8217;t defend that,&#8221; Verstappen said of his country&#8217;s defeat to a Messi-inspired Argentina.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#8220;He knows how to read the game,&#8221; Verstappen said. &#8220;You see a lot of people, they need to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":589202,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[12910,64,63,817,813,816,108382,115845,15350,85,21418],"class_list":{"0":"post-589201","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-argentina","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-f1","12":"tag-formula-1","13":"tag-formula1","14":"tag-inter-miami-cf","15":"tag-l-messi","16":"tag-major-league-soccer","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-world-cup"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=589201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589201\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/589202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=589201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=589201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=589201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}