Martinez hits three as Argentina crush Mexico 4-0

The Mexico National Team suffered their first loss in the Gerardo “Tata” Martino era as La Albiceleste cruised to a 4-0 win over El Tri, which included a hat-trick from Inter striker Lautaro Martinez.

Martino’s men began the game well, causing Argentina problems early on. But El Tri found themselves behind on 17 minutes when Martinez fired the ball home following a bad giveaway from Nestor Araujo.

Argentina doubled their lead moments later following good work from Exequiel Palacios, who took advantage of another Nestor Araujo mistake to squeeze the ball into the path of Martinez to score the 2-0.

Argentina were then given a penalty when a handball was called in the 33rd minute. Leandro Paredes stepped up and increased the margin to three goals.

A fourth eventually arrived after yet another mistake from Araujo. Martinez capitalized to score and make it 4-0 in favor of Argentina at the break.

Barring some hard tackles, the second half was fairly routine. It wasn’t until the 93rd minute when Hirving “Chucky” Lozano had a tame effort saved that El Tri got their first shot on target.

At the end, the final whistle brought an end to a night to forget for El Tri who will now have to shift focus to the CONCACAF Nations League where Martino is expected to call a majority U-23 team to take on Bermuda and Panama.