El Fantasma de Corea y Japón 2002... / The Ghost of Korea and Japan 2002...

Just like it happened in the distant 2002, where "Loco" Bielsa's team came as the great favorite to win the World Cup, since their qualifying phase for the tournament had been impeccable, in addition to having an incredible player base such as Walter Samuel, Javier Zanetti, Gabriel Batistuta or Hernán Crespo, just to name a few, 20 years later, that same favoritism weighed on the albiceste in the opening match in Qatar, where she not only arrived as the champion of America, but also had with an unbeaten streak that was close to the best in the history of national team football, and against the forecast of the most pessimistic fan of this sport, they lost against Saudi Arabia, showing very poor football.

From minute 1 Argentina looked very erratic and hasty, they rarely tried to combine short in midfield, basing their game on long balls behind the defenders, forgetting the association football that took them to where they had arrived. The absence of Lo Celso in the midfield was very important, without the Villarreal player the creation zone was greatly affected, Messi was barely able to get into play, and although he delayed his position to try to receive freely, he always had the mark of 1 or 2 Saudi players, and although Scaloni trusted Papu Gómez to play on the left, he ended up contributing little or nothing to the creation of the game.

Despite the fact that the game was not good, Argentina ended up opening the scoring after a penalty awarded by the referee before 10 minutes into the game, and Messi would not miss that gift, putting the albiceste over the score very early, which It made many of us think of a win, or at least in a simple game, but the reality was very different, since Argentina did not calm down and continued with its plan of hitting balls behind the central defenders, but Saudi Arabia knew how to counteract this very well, advancing their lines and causing up to three goals to be annulled in that first half to the albiceste, one to Messi and another two to Lautaro Martinez, the second being a total madness of the automatic offside system.

This clear change of game could be due to the inferiority in general quality of the Saudis, leaving a crazy statistic, since only in the first part, Argentina committed more offsides than in all of Russia 2018, a fact that reflects the despair of the team for getting to the goal defended by Mohammed Al Owais as quickly as possible, who I also have to say, played the game of his life. The minutes passed, Argentina's midfield never connected and Saudi Arabia began to grow little by little, because no one would have believed that they were capable of completely nullifying De Paul, Messi, Di María and company...

I honestly believed that for the resumption Scaloni would move his bench, a player was needed who would spend a second more in midfield and who would begin to make sense of his team's game, but incredibly the same eleven players came out. The script on the part of the albiceste was the same, but a seasoned Saudi Arabia came out with great intensity, advancing their lines, and against the odds, they took the lead with two spectacular goals, first Saleh Al-Shehri took advantage of an error by the rival defense, beating "Dibu" Martínez with a cross shot, despite having the mark on Romero, who was touched after this move, and only 5 minutes later, Salem Al-Dawsari benefited from the confusion of his rivals, and In a play more typical of Diego Maradona himself, he removed the mark of up to four Argentines, taking a shot to the left corner of the goal, impossible for any human to stop.

Scaloni did not take long to react, Romero's headdress ended up coming out, like Paredes and Gómez, who, unlike other parties, did not contribute anything in the creation, Enzo Fernández came in to play as a defensive pivot, giving him a little more freedom to De Paul, Lisandro Martínez positioned himself in the central saga, while Julián Álvarez occupied the left wing in the first instance, to later play as a second striker, further delaying Messi's position, but despite the fact that these players have a better treatment of the ball, Argentina's desperation to tie the game at any cost prevented the game in the midfield from going to the background, making the same mistakes that had already led them to this situation.

The Saudi players ended up playing in their area almost in a 6-3-1, with very few meters between each of the lines, changing to a rougher version, and despite being filled with yellow cards, they could have received at least two more, but none of that detracts from what they did, they fought for every ball no matter what, they went to cut all the balls, they pressed relentlessly, and whenever it was required, the goalkeeper responded in a great way. Something very worrying of all was what Messi did, he lost many easy balls, he rarely went to the clash, giving me the impression that he was afraid, and knowing the image of his ankle from a few days ago, his physical condition does not seem the best at the least indicated moment of the Scaloni cycle.

The albiceste scored many aerial balls, prisoners of despair and with the hope of a heroic one that never came, losing an unbeaten streak of 36 games and losing a game after leaving with an advantage on the scoreboard since Uruguay 1930, that is, 92 years then, a statistic that could leave anyone cold. Arriving in excess of this game took its toll on Scaloni's team, who with this defeat almost gave up first place in the group, and be careful if they even fail to qualify for the round of 16, as there are precedents, and just that edition in Korea and Japan 2002 is the best example of this, added also to the fact that a hypothetical second place could match them with France again in the round of 16, executioner of the albiceste in Russia, and although everything looked very bleak for Messi and company, Spain managed to rebuild itself in a victory in the first game so that, in the end, they would be world champions, nothing is written yet and hope is the last thing that is lost...