World football icon Lionel Messi thought that it was going to be a walk in the park, after he scored a penalty goal against Saudi Arabia, but it all ended up a nightmare for him and teammates as the Saudi recorded their biggest World Cup win.
Messi has now scored at four different World Cup tournaments, becoming only the fifth player ever to do so – after Pele, Uwe Seeler, Miroslav Klose and Cristiano Ronaldo. But this day records didn’t matter to the Argentine star, he could comprehend how they found themselves 2-1 down and couldn’t recover.
“In five minutes of errors we lost the lead and found ourselves 1-2 down. We messed up, we threw crosses into the box and the game became a little complicated.”
“I saw that the offsides were very fair. I didn’t see them through images, but if they were annulled, they would be the right decisions. There is no excuse.”
“We knew that it was a team that if we let them play, they played well and that they pushed us a lot with their high (defensive) line.”
“I had never suffered such a hard blow with this group of players. Things happen for a reason. Now, obviously, we have to win or win (to get through the group).”
Argentina must now get a result in their coming two games against Poland and Mexico.
Also speaking, Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni insisted his team had not taken Saudi Arabia lightly.
“We fully respect Saudi Arabia as we do with other teams, that’s not the reason for our defeat,” said Scaloni, whose team had not lost since July 2019.
“They are a good team with technical players, they are very well prepared physically.”
In 1990, then-champions Argentina lost their opening World Cup match 1-0 against Cameroon — another of the tournament’s greatest shocks — before bouncing back to reach the final.
“What comes ahead is to rise up, to face Mexico. They will be tough, as everyone is at the World Cup. Now we need to win two games to move on.
“Of course this is difficult but regardless of the result today we would anyway try to win all the games.”
