Mauricio Pochettino tells talkSPORT that ‘everyone’ in Qatar is willing #ARG 🇦🇷 's Lionel Messi on to win the #FIFAWorldCup

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Mauricio Pochettino says ‘everyone’ wants Lionel Messi and Argentina to win World Cup and backs Harry Kane to finally score for England in Qatar

Mauricio Pochettino has told talkSPORT that ‘everyone’ in Qatar is willing Lionel Messi on to win the World Cup.

Argentina were many people’s favourites to win the tournament after racking up a 35 match unbeaten streak in the build-up.

Only for that to be ended by Saudi Arabia in the first group match to give them an uphill task of qualifying for the knockout stages.

They beat Mexico 2-0 and they know that beating Poland on Wednesday will see them finish in top spot, unless Saudi Arabia thrash Mexico by a considerable margin.

Speaking to talkSPORT in Qatar, former Southampton and Tottenham boss Pochettino told talkSPORT: “I can feel here that everyone, football people, wants to see Messi lift the World Cup trophy. Everything Messi has given to football is like football should reward Messi by giving him the trophy.

“We need to wait, we need to see and hope everything will go well for Argentina.

“Of course for England also, why not a final? Argentina vs England should be amazing. England are doing well also.”

Pochettino coached Messi himself at Paris Saint-Germain where he won the Ligue 1 title before leaving at the end of last season.

The 50-year-old has seen the seven-time Ballon d’Or winner up close and was asked for his advice on how to stop him… spoiler there’s nothing you can do.

He continued: “I always listen to people talking about that and people that were great playing against Messi – it impossible to stop him.

“It’s really, really difficult. He’s a genius, the best player in the world. These type of things you can only be lucky and try and get the ball back from him.

“I think it is a thing that is going to be good and see now the competition is going to be tough for all the team.”

Another brilliant forward Pochettino has also coached is of course Harry Kane, who is yet to score in Qatar.

The Spurs striker still has three assists and it has not been too important that he hasn’t scored with England already netting nine times in the group stages.

On Kane, Pochettino added: “For sure he will want to score and he will score. Harry Kane is a decisive player, an unbelievable player, maybe he has not had the chances to score.

“Sometimes you don’t score so much, but you score the decisive goals. Maybe it is more important they score a lot of goals in games you maybe win 6-0 or 7-0.”