Lionel Messi lamented Argentina’s shock second-half defeat to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, but said he was not surprised that opponents were 48 places down in the world rankings.
“It’s a situation this group of players has never been through. It’s been a while since we’ve suffered such a hard blow, we didn’t expect to start like this. We were confident of winning and starting with the three points that give you peace of mind. But this group has always stood out for the unity and strength, and it’s time to be more united than ever and know that we have to go back to the basics of how our game works to try to beat Mexico”, Messi told the Argentine media, highlighting that the players felt “dead ” in the locker room after the 2-1 defeat.
Starting his fifth World Cup, Messi opened the scoring with a penalty in the 10th minute and Argentina had three goals disallowed for offside in a quiet first half.
“We found the goal very quickly, we had situations of disallowed goals and at that moment we believed that we would have many more situations like this. That’s when we made the mistake of accelerating and playing on one side and not passing the ball from one side to the other. We knew they were doing that to launch the high line. We accelerated a little. Then they made it 2 to 1 and we started to get in the way, to lose the game, to play desperately, we crossed and we couldn’t draw”, analyzed the number 10 to Olé.
Messi said his team knew that Saudi Arabia, despite being the second-lowest ranked team in the tournament (51st, just ahead of Ghana, 61st), could hurt them.
“We knew they were a team that would play if we let them… They didn’t surprise us, we knew they could do it.”
Argentina now need to focus on beating Mexico and Poland – who drew 0-0 on Tuesday – in the next group stage matches, in search of the only major title that Messi eluded in his 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 unbeaten for 36 games before the crash.
“We’re fine, obviously hurt by the result, very bitter. But people have to trust that this team won’t let them down and we’re going to look for that in the next two games. We’ve played games of this nature before and we’re going to perform well. It’s time for us to be more united than ever, to show how truly strong we are.”
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