Despite all the criticism leveled at Lionel Messi when playing in an Argentina shirt, he starred in his nation's first game of the World Cup as Argentina beat Nigeria by a goal to nil.

It was an unlikely source as Argentina took the lead inside just 6 minutes. A wicked corner by Veron was headed in by defender Gabriel Heinze to get Diego Maradona's men off to the perfect start.

Argentina were in command for almost the entirety of the game as Messi and Tevez's jinking runs caused Nigeria's defense all sorts of problems. It was Messi who was particularly impressive, often carving his way through the opposition defense, but failing to beat goalkeeper Vincent Enyeama.

In the end it was Enyeama who was named man-of-the-match after a string of world-class saves, several of those preventing Messi from scoring his first of this campaign.

Messi and Argentina will take great confidence from today's match and they will now be considered by many as one of the tournament favorites given their wealth of attacking options.