The mute prince of world football seemed to know something was wrong from kick-off, a hand to his brow, and some whispered words for none but himself, and that was even before Lionel Messi opened his eyes and looked around at the worst Argentina team in memory. Surely it couldn’t get worse for Argentina. In its opening World Cup game, against tiny Iceland, a game in which captain and national treasure Lionel Messi missed a penalty, the Argentines were held to a draw. But on Thursday the 2014 runners-up found that it could indeed get worse. Much worse.
You could say he tried to save them, but really Messi was more like a grief-stricken relative at the bedside, occasionally rubbing a hand while coming to terms with the reality of the situation. It felt like a long time since someone was handing him a goat and asking him to look at the camera over there, indeed there were times when a goat in a blue and white shirt might have been a better option than whatever Jorge Sampaoli was trying to do. Disappointing against Iceland, Argentina put in a shambolic display against Croatia here in a 3-0 loss that left it on the verge of early elimination. Even if Manager Jorge Sampaoli can somehow solve his misfiring team’s numerous deficiencies and defeat Nigeria in its final Group D game, Argentina will still need other results to go its way to qualify for the knockout phase.
Up in the hospitality seats Diego Maradona had a minder who would ease him gently back when he looked like toppling over the screen in front of him, both expending more nervous energy on this Argentina performance than the man who inherited the No 10 shirt. They are not out yet but a win for Iceland against Nigeria on Friday would put Argentina on the brink, and their destiny in this World Cup finals has already slipped from their control. Messi had his first shot in the 64th minute, perfectly isolated by what Luka Modric would later describe as the perfect game-plan, and yet it felt like the Argentina captain came onto the pitch with a premonition of what was to come. The old inscrutability had slipped, and instead he seemed to be worrying, and with good reason. Sampaoli’s three-man defence was a disaster, compounded by goalkeeper Willy Caballero’s error for the first goal.
