World Cup Day 3 awards: Lionel Messi did a bad thing
Argentina drew with Iceland, while France, Denmark and Croatia all won on World Cup Day 3. Let’s hand out some awards.
World Cup Day 3 is over. The only four-match day of the tournament began with a VAR-fest, as France beat Australia, continued with Argentina’s disappointing draw with Iceland, continued continuing with Peru’s hard-luck loss to Denmark and concluded with a comfortable win for Croatia against Nigeria. Let’s hand out some awards.
The Lionel Messi Award for One Missed Penalty And Suddenly Being Your Team’s Only Good Player Isn’t Good Enough For Anyone Anymore: Lionel Messi
Cristiano Ronaldo did a thing, so Lionel Messi had to do another thing. That’s how this works. Unfortunately for Argentina fans, the thing Messi did was miss a penalty, with a chance to give his side a valuable lead (and probably a win) in their first match, no less. He did other things, of course, as he always does, orchestrating almost every halfway decent Argentina attack for 90 whole minutes, barely losing the ball despite having multiple defenders standing on top of him almost the entire game, not just, like, bursting into a cloud of smoke on account of having to put up with all those teammates standing around willing him to win the game for them. But he missed a penalty. Ronaldo didn’t. That, it seems, is that.
The Graham Poll Award for What Is Clear And Obvious Anyway? VAR
Saturday’s first match, which saw France take on Australia in the Group C opener, was never likely to live up to Friday’s last, and live up it didn’t, as France spent almost an hour sort of ambling slowly in the direction of Australia’s goal before failing to score. Then the VAR got involved, awarding a penalty to France for Josh Risdon’s foul on Antoine Griezmann. The ref pointed to the spot after reviewing the play, but was it a foul, really? That depended on who you asked. There was contact, but was it deliberate, was it enough, and anyway hadn’t Griezmann already lost control of the ball? That also depended on who you asked. VAR then, clearly and obviously settling the game’s biggest questions, as promised.
The Lance Armstrong Award for Dubious Records: Iceland
Messi’s penalty miss may have been the headline incident in Argentina’s match against Iceland, but it wasn’t so earth-shattering as to detract from the Scandinavian side becoming the smallest nation ever to earn a World Cup point. Then again, had Messi scored, Iceland would have become the smallest nation ever to record a World Cup loss. Or, you know, say maybe they lost 7-1 instead. Then they would have become the smallest nation ever to get humiliated so badly the watching world had no choice but to complain for an entire 24 hours about the coming 48-team World Cup. New rule: Iceland aren’t allowed to break “smallest nation” records anymore.
Next: The best player on every team at the World Cup
The Cesar Azpilicueta Award for Give That Man Some More Credit: Luka Modric
Luka Modric isn’t exactly underrated, but you need to be a certain kind of star to get the attention you deserve at Real Madrid. With Ronaldo hamming it up in attack, and a rotating cast of world’s most expensive substitutes glaring on from the bench, it’s easy to overlook Modric’s metronomic excellence. His performance for Croatia against Nigeria wasn’t great by his standards, but it was good (which roughly translates as great by anyone else’s standards). At 32 years old, this is likely to be the midfielder’s last World Cup, at least during his peak years. A solid opening performance by Croatia suggest we may get enjoy him a little while yet. That should be welcome news to us all.