LUSAIL, Qatar – This time should have been different. This time was not meant to end like all the others, with those slumped shoulders, that faraway look, that hollow grimace. Qatar shouldn’t have been as bad as Rome or Liverpool or Lisbon, let alone Rio de Janeiro. And in a way it wasn’t. It was worse.
Argentina arrived in Qatar with the sole ambition of ensuring that Lionel Messi’s last World Cup would be remembered as the World Cup that bathed his legacy in the brilliant, golden glow that only this tournament, this ultimate triumph, can bestow. Instead, it must now face the terrifying possibility that it will forever be synonymous with one of its darkest humiliations, one of the greatest setbacks in this tournament’s history.
For Argentina, losing to Saudi Arabia wasn’t just a defeat; it was a disgrace, a disgrace, a stigma that was drawn in the Argentinian skin in front of 88,000 people, streamed live on television and beamed around the world. Towards the end, as the frenzied Saudi substitutes poured onto the field, the Argentine players seemed visibly diminished, their faces drawn, their eyes hunted.
No more, of course, than Messi. He’s worn that look more than he’d like in recent years. It’s become much more familiar than you might expect for a player widely regarded as the greatest of all time.
The sunset of the most brilliant career of all has been picked, not least, in the shadows: those traumatic defeats in his final years with Barcelona against Roma and Liverpool and Bayern Munich, the dreaded inevitability of disappointment oozing from the jaws of glory snatched away with Paris St.-Germain against Real Madrid earlier this year.
And after each of them, that same despondent silhouette – hands on hips, head bowed, eyes downcast as he slowly walks off the pitch – that he cut off as the whistle blew at Lusail, the stadium that will host the final of Messi’s final World Cup. next month, and Argentina’s nightmare turned flesh.
A brief guide to the 2022 World Cup
What is the World Cup? During this four-yearly event, the best national football teams compete for the title of world champion. Here’s an introduction to the 2022 men’s tournament:
In any case, the pain of this will sting more than the others. Not just because of the opponent: An unannounced and obnoxious Saudi team portrayed as little more than a sacrificial lamb, Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Salman advised, not a man who seems the sort who believes it really is the participation that counts.
The real difference, however, was Argentina itself. For the first time in years, the country had somehow assembled a national team that was not entangled in an intricate web of neuroses and complexes. Under Lionel Scaloni, the quiet coach who had initially taken the job on a temporary basis and proved surprisingly good at it, Argentina had nurtured a system designed to give an elderly Messi the support he needed.
In the years before the tournament, it had played 35 matches and lost none of them. More importantly, it ended the generation-long wait for an international honor, capturing the first Copa América since 1993 in the most satisfying way imaginable: beating Brazil in Brazil. It had followed that up by dismantling the European champion, Italy, in a game marketed as the Finalissima.
Argentina had the best player in the world – arguably the greatest of all time – in rich form, an exceptionally gifted supporting cast and a huge army of fans behind them, the streets of Doha were teeming with albiceleste jerseys and banners and flags. That has of course been the case for at least three World Cups. The difference this time around was that the team looked confident and confident, almost serene.
It didn’t take more than five minutes to get all of that apart. Argentina had dominated the first half, taking the lead from a penalty which, somewhat coincidentally, was won by Leandro Paredes and converted with little ceremony by Messi. Luck didn’t stretch that far – a further three goals were disallowed for offside, at least one of them narrowly – but even so, when the teams went in at half time, there seemed little cause for concern.
Perhaps complacency explains what happened next: Argentina dozed off as Saleh Alshehri netted an equalizer, then watched helplessly as Salem Aldawsari danced through three challenges and curled a shot, the perfect parabola, past Emiliano Martínez’s clawing grasp.
Saudi fans, with thousands of buses from the border 90 miles away, roared; Argentina, shocked, had the ghost of defeat by Cameroon on their shoulders. The players also seemed unable to react; this is not a team that has had much experience recovering from setbacks in recent years.
And so, instead of keeping a cool head, slowly turning the screw on their tired opponents, the Argentine players became worried and exhausted and chased and rushed. There’s a fine line between urgent and hectic, and Messi and his teammates fell firmly on the wrong side of it.
With half an hour to create a single chance for some of the best forwards in the world, Argentina generated nothing. Even Messi, a creature ostensibly carved out of pure, unadulterated poise, seemed haunted, rushing his passes, missing his beats, fading from the game as the clock ticked instead of bending him to his will. Perhaps he has suffered these indignities enough by now to smell when one is coming; perhaps he is attuned to the cruelty of fate.
All is not lost, of course. Argentina has two games left to avert disaster, to spare its blush; beat Mexico and Poland in the remaining two group matches and on the face of it, losing to Saudi Arabia won’t have done lasting damage. After all, that defeat to Cameroon in 1990 did not stop Diego Maradona from guiding his team all the way to the World Cup final. This is not the end of Messi’s tournament. It can’t be more than a false start.
At the moment, as Messi and his team-mates gathered in a tight group in the center of the pitch, as if huddling together for safety and for security and warmth, it didn’t feel that way. Instead, it seemed as if something had been undone in the white heat of Lusail’s midday sun. This time it should have been different. Suddenly it all felt exactly the same for Messi and for Argentina.
