Team KSA scored a shock upset against the South American champions with a 2-1 victory
Doha, Qatar: Lionel Messi lamented Argentina’s shock second half defeat against Saudi Arabia on Tuesday but said he was not surprised by the threat from opponents 48 places lower in the world rankings, a report in the Khaleej Times says
“It’s a situation that this group of players has never been through, it’s been a while since we suffered such a tough blow, we didn’t expect to start like this,” Messi told Argentinian media after the 2-1 defeat in Group C.
In a free-flowing first half in his his fifth World Cup, Messi had opened the scoring with a 10th minute penalty and Argentina had three goals disallowed for offside.
But in the second half, “in five minutes of mistakes that we made, we went 2-1 down and then it was really tough and we lost organisation and started punting the ball,” he said in comments broadcast by Todo Noticias.
Messi said his team knew Saudi Arabia, despite being the second-lowest ranked team in the tournament, could hurt them.
“We knew they were a team who would play if we let them…They did not surprise us, we knew they could do that.”
Argentina will now have to focus on beating Mexico and Poland in their next group games in search of the only major title that has eluded Messi in his otherwise glittering career.
“Obviously we have to win or win now. It’s up to us to fix what we did wrong and get back to the basics of who we are,” said Messi, whose team had been on a 36-match unbeaten run prior to the shock result at the Lusail Stadium in Qatar.
“We’re OK, but obviously hurt by the result, and very bitter. But people must trust that this team will not let them down and we are going to go for it in the next two games. We’ve played games of this nature before and we’re going to perform well.
“Now’s the time to be more united than ever, to show how truly strong we are.
*********************************************************************
Readers
These are extraordinary times. All of us have to rely on high-impact, trustworthy journalism. And this is especially true of the Indian Diaspora. Members of the Indian community overseas cannot be fed with inaccurate news.
Pravasi Samwad is a venture that has no shareholders. It is the result of an impassioned initiative of a handful of Indian journalists spread around the world. We have taken the small step forward with the pledge to provide news with accuracy, free from political and commercial influence. Our aim is to keep you, our readers, informed about developments at ‘home’ and across the world that affect you.
Please help us to keep our journalism independent and free.
In these difficult times, to run a news website requires finances. While every contribution, big or small, will makes a difference, we request our readers to put us in touch with advertisers worldwide. It will be a great help.
For more information: pravasisamwad00@gmail.com