“Do you want a photo with Messi? You have to put pressure on him!”, the strong message of the Saudi Arabia coach at half-time against Argentina

“What are we doing? Is this our pressure?” you can see and hear the French coach yelling at them Herve Renard its players in a video published by the Football Association of Saudi Arabia. It was inside first half of the match his team lost against Argentina and then it turned into the debut of both at the Qatar 2022 World Cup.

“Take a picture with Messi, if that’s what you want”, the DT told them visibly angry at the respect he observed in his players for the Argentine 10. Quite the opposite of what he wanted from them. “They have to put pressure on him. He has the ball and they keep looking at him,” he added.

The Albiceleste had been slightly superior to the Saudis during the first half in Lusail, for the first date of group C of the World Cup. They won 1-0 from a Lionel Messi penalty and the difference could have been greater if Lionel Scaloni’s men hadn’t fallen into the offside trap that the Asians set up as a defensive system.

Logic, if football has it, indicated that the champion of America would comfortably prevail. But it’s football.

Renard, however, convinced his people that no such thing would happen. During the green team’s long concentration in the World Cup preview, that idea didn’t seem to have been very solid, especially in the first 45 minutes.

So with partial defeat embodied, the French decided to reiterate that it was no match. “Come on guys, it’s a World Cup. to give everything“, he asked.

The images are appreciated thanks to an almost ten-minute video that the Saudi federation published on its networks with the before, during and after the historic day that led to a national holiday in Saudi Arabia after the 2-1 draw.

During a harsh rebuke in the locker room, the Frenchman recriminated his players, shouting and using provocative gestures, trying to ridicule them: “Messi has the goal and you stay put. Press him”.

His sentences were paused so that the translator had time to do his thing. The speech disguised as a challenge ended with a joint applause before going out to play the second half.

In it, for the first handful of minutes, the Arabs actually showed a more aggressive attitude and reversed the result. At that time, one footballer even dared to pat Messi on the back and scold him: “You won’t beat us.”

Saudi audacity also reached his fans who, during the post-match party, wondered “where is Messi”.

While Argentina does the numbers not to be eliminated in the first phase, as happened in 2002, and to reach the round of 16, however, the Saudis still have two games to realize what was a dream, almost a utopia in the world of logic football, if any.

The photo with the Argentine number 10, now, will not be a memory of having shared a football field with him, but of beating him in a World Cup. To have gone down in history.

db