Arab happiness – Newspaper Kommersant No. 217 (7418) of 11/23/2022

The first high-profile sensation of the World Cup in Qatar happened in the match that opened the tournament in group C. The Argentina national team, considered almost the main favorite of the championship, leading after the first half thanks to a goal from the penalty spot by Lionel Messi, lost to the quartet, which was considered a hopeless outsider, but in the second half of the meeting riding a giant wave of football inspiration to the team of Saudi Arabia – 1:2.

The most dramatic, most comprehensive picture of the day, one that the photographers and cameramen working on the first match in Group C certainly couldn’t afford to miss. A minute after the final whistle, the Saudi Arabian football players run to the podium with their fans, and sparks of transcendental happiness fly in all directions from them, splashing out in tons. And in the background, head down, trying not to meet the eyes of those who worried about them, the Argentines are wandering towards the tunnel to the locker rooms. And below all, their leader Lionel Messi’s head is lowered, as if he has become even lower, as if hiding from prying eyes.

At the current World Cup, perhaps, there will be many more surprises. But there will be nothing strange if this sensation remains at the top of the rating of the most sonorous. To imagine that the team, which was considered almost the main favorite of the entire championship, would lose to the team from the sixth top ten of the International Football Federation (FIFA) rating, in principle, was not easy. And to imagine an intricate plot crowned with a Saudi carnival and an Argentine funeral march is simply unrealistic.

The presentation of the Qatari version of the Argentina national team went pretty smoothly for some time, threatening to turn the match into a boring and unremarkable event.

A minute and a half after it started, the Argentine sectors at the Lusail Iconic stadium were already on their feet, ready to admire their idol, and some even managed to shout “Goal!”. Indeed, the position in which Lionel Messi found himself – right in front of the goal, in front – only goalkeeper Mohammed al-Owais – literally screamed that the goal should take place. And the seven-time Ballon d’Or-winning lefthander was actually good, straight into the bottom corner. But a second after the premature, as it turned out, Argentine triumph, the Saudi sectors were already jubilant: al-Owais managed to hit the ball.

However, soon the Argentines still scored. This penalty was from the category of those that in the “tube era” were actually excluded. Only VAR could see that Leandro Paredes was caught a little more frankly, harder than the referee’s instructions recommend during the usual standard fight in the penalty area.

The penalty kick was, of course, Messi and performed it with icy composure.

Something similar happened in Qatar. Sunday opening match. The host team, almost identical in terms of rating, brightness of the application of the Saudi, miraculously held out for several minutes in the match with the South American opponents quoted above, and then conceded from the Ecuadorians and could no longer raise their heads.

But this was a slightly different story. Lionel Messi’s gift of a penalty kick, the electronic referee assistance system, turned out to open a big show. The Saudis, unlike the Qataris, abandoned the use of a very simple system of play in defense – well, when almost the entire team retreats deep back and tries to stop the opponents in numbers. The Saudi Arabian back four constantly and extremely synchronized moved forward, building offside traps. During the first half, the Argentines climbed into them seven times, in three cases getting into a trap deprived them – Messi, and after him twice Lautaro Martinez – an already scored goal. Moreover, in the case of the first of Martinez’s balls, a small part of the Argentine striker’s hand was out of play.

But there was something else that made you follow the match closely, in addition to this trick that worked on the subtle tricks of the Saudis.

Some time after the penalty, Messi had to admit: the Saudis are gradually finding themselves in the foreign half, and the Argentinean defense is not so easy.

And the favorite does not have any absolutely overwhelming superiority in possession of the ball and territory. And in the chats of the football sections of the websites of the leading resources, they have already shared their observations about the inertia of the Argentina national team, recalling that four people who were at least 34 years old came out of the starting lineup at once: Messi, Angel Di Maria, Alejandro Gomez and Nicolas Otamendi. This has never happened before at the World Championships. And “older” teams are sometimes quite vulnerable, no matter how much class they have.

And all the same, even these people, accustomed to looking for a reason for doubt in everything, could not, of course, guess what the Saudi Arabian team, which was left without the injured captain Salman al-Faraj, would do after the break. It was one of those wonderful miracles that occasionally gives, spitting on rationality and logic, football.

A modest team made up entirely of players from the local championship, not much different from the one that lost – 0: 5 – to the Russians in the opening match of the previous World Cup, jumped out after a break on the field, like a hungry lion released from a cage to hunt an antelope, and immediately hurt the Argentines. Passed a penetrating pass, which pulled Saleh al-Shehri. Near him was Christian Romero, but the Argentine defender still failed to prevent Al-Shehri from breaking through. The ball rolled into the net brought the Saudi tribune into ecstasy. He was already the ultimate dream for her. However, the Saudis have not yet reached the limit.

The goal that equalized the score could still be mistaken for an emergency, for an accidental outburst, which the grandee will surely digest. But the goal, which brought the outsiders forward, did not exactly pull on a crazy insight.

It matured throughout the short, five-minute gap between two Saudi bites. It was a segment of a real Argentinean panic, senseless throwing around your own penalty area in search of salvation from the incredible power, energy of the enemy’s onslaught. The Argentines themselves found themselves in an outsider’s shoes, and their fans were forced to watch how a foreign player unknown to them, transforming a gigantic gaming superiority into material success, performs such a number, which, in theory, the football king of the century Messi should have given out in this match. Salem al-Dawsari got the ball at the corner of the penalty area. He was surrounded by a whole detachment of Argentine players, but al-Dawsari on this spot deftly left them and fired into the far corner. He fired almost perfectly – goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez slightly touched the ball with his hand, but his touch was too little to save his team from trouble.

At that moment, it was scary to look at the Argentine fans and the Argentine coach Lionel Scaloni. He was a classic example of a man who fell into a state of complete prostration, not understanding what to do. Replacing three players at once looked perfect on the machine, simply because something needs to be done, even if you don’t know what exactly.

But the disaster kept getting closer and closer. Because the Argentines, although they got rid of the symptoms of panic, still could not crack the still strong Saudi defense with its traps.

Because Mohammed al-Owais played like a god, coping with everything that he was tested for strength – shots from close and long distances, sheds, and once even hedged the defenders by running out of the penalty area and playing in a tackle. Because the cunning coach of the Saudis, the Frenchman Herve Renard guessed with each replacement. Because, in the end, Lionel Messi did not look like a football king, and the free kick from his favorite spot, just to the right of the center, ruined it, sending the ball high over the crossbar.

Doomed to defeat, the Saudi Arabian team endured until their victory and, having mixed the alignment in group C, fully took advantage of their right to the carnival. And those who cherish the Argentines could only comfort themselves with memories associated with 2010. For the favorites of the South African World Cup of the Spaniards, it also opened with embarrassment – a loss to the Swiss, and ended in gold.

Alexey Dospekhov