In the battle of the No.10s, it was Sigurdsson who surprising came out at the top. It was an unusually bad day for Messi as a whole, who had several close chances to score, and the penalty miss was just the rotten cherry on top of an expired cake.
After watching Ronaldo being all pumped up yesterday, Messi was the complete opposite of it here. He ran slower than he usually does, his passes were a little less zingy, and even the penalty was average at best, and borderline awful.
Sigurdsson, on the other hand, lived up to his and Iceland’s reputation. The goal came off a Sigurdsson cross as well, the rebound falling very so kindly to Finnbogason who was in no mood to miss.
Other than that, Gylfi was much more involved in the game with him being the anchor around which the rest of the team revolved. It was the same for Messi too, but without the same level of impact.
Messi had two shots at the end go very, very close but Argentina doesn’t care as long as it isn’t inside the back of the net.