Lionel Messi experienced one of the most bitter games of his long, successful career against Saudi Arabia. At the World Cup, the favorite for the title loses to the blatant outsider. Messi’s own hit for the history books becomes a side note.
Argentina superstar Lionel Messi has entered an elite circle with his goal against Saudi Arabia. The 35-year-old is only the fifth footballer to score in four World Cups. Before him, only Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal), Miroslav Klose, Uwe Seeler (both Germany) and Pelé (Brazil) had managed this feat. For Messi, the 1-0 penalty kick (10th) was the seventh goal in the 20th World Cup game, only in 2010 did he not score. The “eternal” list of goalscorers at the World Cup is still headed by Klose, who scored a total of 16 goals in 2002 (5), 2006 (5), 2010 (4) and 2014 (2). Klose does not have to worry about his record this year: Of the players active in Qatar, DFB striker Thomas Müller has ten goals, Cristiano Ronaldo even scored only seven like Messi.
However, the superstar won’t care much about entering the circle of top scorers: The Saudi Arabians countered the deficit shortly after half-time with two goals within a few minutes and won 2-1. The bankruptcy for the two-time world champion, who started with great ambitions, can already be considered one of the biggest sensations in the long history of the World Cup. The Argentine national team had not lost 36 games before, last summer they had won the Copa America. Messi had announced in the run-up to the game that he saw parallels in the current squad with the team that failed in the final against Germany in Brazil a good eight years ago. “The team is very reminiscent of 2014, who were very united and who knew what they had to do on the pitch.”
Now the multiple world footballer has to fear saying goodbye to his last World Cup with a debacle: “There is no excuse. We must now be more united than ever before,” said the 35-year-old after the embarrassing bankruptcy. “Now we have to show that we are a real team.” In games against Mexico and Poland, however, there is still a chance to do better and collect points for a place in the round of 16. “It’s a situation we haven’t been in for a long time,” said Messi, calling the defeat to the furiously fighting men from Saudi Arabia a “heavy blow for all of us.” Nobody among the Argentines “expected to start like this”. Mexico and Robert Lewandowski’s Poland are still waiting for the Argentines in Group C.
