Messi comes off the bench to score in Argentina’s final World Cup warm-up

Lionel Messi came off the bench and scored a penalty as Argentina wrapped up their World Cup preparations with a comfortable 3-0 victory over Iceland in Auburn, in the US state of Alabama.

Messi came on in the 70th minute and set up a penalty kick with his first touch of the match, before converting the spot kick to double Argentina’s lead on Tuesday evening. Valentin Barco and Thiago Almada also scored for the South American giants as they came through their final warm-up game unscathed.

Messi, 38, missed Argentina’s first friendly against Honduras on Saturday as he continued his recovery from left hamstring soreness, which forced him to prematurely exit Inter Miami’s final match before the World Cup break on May 24.

He set up the penalty with a throughball to Lautaro Martinez, who was taken out by Iceland goalkeeper Elias Olafsson. Messi buried the spot kick into the roof of the net, scoring the 117th international goal of his career.

With his World Cup status seemingly certain, Messi is set to set a record this month alongside Cristiano Ronaldo when he appears in his sixth career World Cup.

Messi was joined on the sidelines at the start by Julian Alvarez, Enzo Fernandez and Alexis Mac Allister as Lionel Scaloni named an experimental lineup in front of an 88,000 capacity crowd.

Iceland should have taken the lead in the first few minutes when Mikael Egill Ellertsson blasted over with the goal gaping.

Iceland could only partially clear a goalmouth scramble inside their box, and the ball broke to Strasbourg defender Valentin Barco to fire into the bottom corner.