Lionel Messi’s dream of taking his country to World Cup glory lies in tatters.
Argentina slipped to the brink of an embarrassing World Cup group-stage exit on Thursday after Croatia beat the South Americans 3-0 to progress to the last 16.
A goalkeeping howler from Willy Caballero allowed Ante Rebic to give Croatia a 53rd-minute lead, and late goals from Luka Modric and Ivan Rakitic left Messi and Argentina needing an unlikely series of results to keep their hopes of progressing from Group D alive.
On the night though, it was a defeat that will have to be filed under ‘humiliating’ for Argentina. There’s no shame in losing to an excellent Croatian side, but the performance of Messi and Co was poor, to put it mildly.
Of course, the tone for the night was set as early as the national anthems. Messi’s reaction caught everyone’s attention and it turned out to foreshadowing akin to what we see in Game of Thrones. The sign of an impending disaster.
When the first goal came in the second half, thanks to an almighty error by the goalkeeper Caballero, it was all too predictable that the Messi pre-match image would go viral.
The G.O.A.T debate had to come up, obviously.
There was, expectedly, plenty of praise for Croatia.
Finally, a rallying call in support of Messi. Football is a team sport after all.
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