The intimacy of Argentina’s bunker after the defeat: Messi’s words, a difficult dinner and an oath to get up

The locker room was a moment of silence and nothing more. The defeat was still too fresh to open his mouth. The 1-2 draw in the bowels of the massive Lusail stadium was a unexpected shovel for the Argentina national team, who had played 36 games without defeat. The journey through the mixed zone to the bus was long. Most of the players passed fast and long-faced.

Lionel Messi, Alejandro Gómez, Emiliano Martínez and Angel Di María stopped by to answer a few questions and put words on the stumbling block in their World Cup debut. “Died”, crossed out 10 when he described the first image with which he found his teammates in the locker room. But they hadn’t had a group conversation yet.

It happened, as he found out clarion, once everyone is on the bus. on the way to the Qatar National University, where Argentina sleeps, the silence was broken when The captain got up to address his companions and make a speech similar to the one he declared in front of this newspaper to show what this group is made ofget stronger than ever and look forward.

Already in concentration the snack was optional (those who wanted to go down and those who could not stay in the room). Several preferred to save themselves for a while and take the opportunity to make catharsis with calls to their families.

Scaloni and the technical staff also spoke to the whole group. They say it was a long speech to try to lift spirits, especially to those who have no experience in this type of competition. Most of the Albiceleste squad are rookies in a World Cup and that’s why it is necessary to support them mentally in this type of situation.

Dinner was hard to digest. The climate was still tense because anger was perceived in the environment. However, the post was taken up by the older ones with motivational messages. In the networks they began to upload allusive posts. say Mary, Papua Gomez, De Paul… Others like I drew Martinez followed them.

They try to move on after the duel on this Tuesday night. Unlike what was happening, This Wednesday the training will take place at 11:00 (local time)when it always happened at 6pm or failing that at 3pm when the temperature started to drop.

The glass half full shows that this is better done now. The half-empty glass indicates that there is no room for further error. And that another loss will leave the team at home, something that would be a real hit.

But nobody thinks about it. They understand that Mexico and Poland are rivals to beat if it will be possible to resume the path of play that has brought the national team here. The draw between these two teams went down well and served to be the ideal push to start changing face and focus on Saturday.

There is nothing more. There is no time to sink into reproaches and regrets.

Doha, Qatar. Special delivery.​