BELO HORIZONTE, June 21, 2014 (AFP) — Lionel Messi scored an injury time goal to give Argentina a 1-0 win over Iran at the World Cup on Saturday and see them through to the knockout stage.

Iran resisted Argentina’s heavyweight attack for 91 minutes and seemed destined for a famous draw in the Group F encounter until Messi’s second rescue goal in two matches.

Result of World Cup Group F match between Argentina and Iran in Belo Horizonte on Saturday:

Argentina 1 (Messi 90+1) Iran 0

Teams

Argentina

Sergio Romero – Pablo Zabaleta, Federico Fernandez, Ezequiel Garay, Marcos Rojo – Fernando Gago, Javier Mascherano, Angel Di Maria (Lucas Biglia 90+4) – Lionel Messi (capt), Gonzalo Higuain (Rodrigo Palacio 77), Sergio Aguero (Ezequiel Lavezzi 77)

Iran

Alireza Haghighi – Pejman Montazeri, Jalal Hosseini, Amirhossein Sadeghi, Mehrdad Pooladi – Massoud Shojaei (Khosro Heydari 77), Anderanik Teymourian, Ehsan Haji Safi (Reza Haghighi 88), Javad Nekounam (capt), Ashkan Dejagah (Alireza Jahan Bakhsh 85) – Reza Ghoochannejad

Yellow cards: Javad Nekounam (53), Massoud Shojaei (73)

Referee: Milorad Mazic (SRB)