LUSAIL, Qatar — This is not how it was supposed to be, but this is how it always seems to end. That slump of the shoulders, that distant stare, that mournful grimace. Argentina came to this World Cup to enshrine Lionel Messi’s legacy in gold. It will remember it, for some time, for one of the greatest humiliations in its history.
A team that had traveled to Qatar on the back of 35 games without defeat, the glow of its first international honor in a generation fresh in the memory, with arguably the greatest player of all time in top form and surrounded by teammates of the highest caliber, opened its tournament with a 2-1 defeat to an opponent, Saudi Arabia, that was supposed to be little more than a sacrificial lamb.