One of the greatest soccer players to ever grace the field just won the World Cup and Aoashi’s mangaka is celebrating his victory.
Argentina and the defending world champion France duked it out in the final match of the 2022 World Cup on Dec. 18. After a thrilling 120-plus minutes and a nail-biting penalty shoot-out, celebrations broke out as Argentina defeated France and crowned the winners. As this could possibly be Argentina’s Lionel Messi’s final World Cup, the title is extra meaningful. Soccer manga series Aoashi’s mangaka Yūgo Kobayashi penned an illustration of the Argentinian captain raising a fist in victory.
Messi Led Argentina to Victory
Messi scored Argentina’s first goal 23 minutes into the match, and 13 minutes later, his teammate Angel Di Maria put the team comfortably in the lead with a second goal. Things changed in the second half when France’s Kylian Mbappé, who had scored five of France’s goals in the matches before the final, put away France’s first goal with a penalty kick. A minute later, Mbappé followed up with a second, tying the game. The game went into thirty minutes of extra time, with Messi and Mbappé scoring their respective team’s third goals. For the fifth time in the tournament, the game went into a penalty shoot-out. Four goals later, Argentina emerged as the new champions.
Considered to be one of the world’s greatest players of all time, Messi’s career began at the age of four when he joined his local soccer club. At 22 years old, Messi won the Ballon d’Or, an award given to the best soccer player in the world as judged by an international panel of sports journalists, and the FIFA World Player of the Year. He won the Golden Ball, an award presented to the best player at each FIFA World Cup final, for a record second time in 2022, with the first time in 2014. Messi is one of the best dribblers in the world, and his short stature allows him to change direction quickly and evade opposing tackles. He is also one of the best passers and playmakers in soccer history and is a skilled, versatile player.
Since its serialization in Weekly Big Comic Spirits in January 2015, Aoashi has over 15 million copies in circulation as of August 2022. The manga won the 65th Shogakukan Manga Award for the general category. The series follows an aspiring soccer player named Ashito Aoi, who hopes to join a good soccer club when he goes to high school. However, his coach pulls him out when he acts rashly and violently in one of the games at his high school preliminary tournament. Without him, his team crumbles and find themselves eliminated from the tournament. All is not last when a youth team coach named Tatsuya Fukuda invites him for tryouts in Tokyo. The series received an anime adaptation by Production I.G in April 2022.
All 24 episodes of Aoashi are available to stream on Crunchyroll. The manga is currently ongoing.
Source: Twitter
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