"Argentina have sorted themselves out, and Poland have scraped through in second. One of these occurrences is a lot more exciting than the other. Elsewhere, Denmark made a lot of pre-tournament predictions look very silly indeed as they crashed out against Australia. And France lost to Tunisia but are trying to have the result changed on a technicality. All VAR\u0027s fault. Football!"
In the end, Poland managed not to kick anybody too hard, and Saudi Arabia's late consolation goal sealed the deal. We would not see Group C decided by the drawing of lots. Instead we've ended up with something much more depressing: another game for Poland.
Perhaps that's a little unfair. Perhaps it's a hard line to walk, to go into a game knowing that defeat will be fine as long as it's not too spectacular, and that the other game is the really important one. It's hard enough to keep track of Lionel Messi when you don't have anything else to worry about. And Argentina, particularly in the second half, started to look a bit like the team they've been in the last few years.
But on the other hand, Poland were dreadful. Unambitious to the point of invisibility; shaky to the point of near-implosion. Perhaps it was all a galaxy-brained plan to protect that fair play record by barely getting close enough to commit any fouls. Or perhaps a gesture of kindness to Wojciech Szczęsny: he must be worried about the situation at Juventus. Let's see if we can take his mind off things.
This isn't just the Warm-Up being mean for meanness' sake. This is a genuine concern. By virtue of finishing second in the group, Poland head into the last 16 to play France, in what scientists are already predicting could be 'the worst game of football of all time'. The solitary confinement of Robert Lewandowski against Didier Deschamps' punishmentball. We give Poland as much chance of actually beating France as we would Mexico or Saudi Arabia, but we know which games we'd rather watch.
But Argentina are fun now, so that's some nice news. Messi is slowly coming to the boil, and the runners around him kept Poland on edge. As is traditional, Messi's greatest enemy remains the penalty spot, that fatal moment when the game becomes just too easy. It's more or less a character quirk by this point, like Poirot's moustache, and it's just a good job penalties are never important in this competition. (It's worth reading Ken Early on this.)
Argentina's greatest enemy, perhaps, is the schedule. Both they and their next opponents Australia have a brutal turnaround ahead of them: two days and change. After the game, Lionel Scaloni called it "crazy", and said it was really harshing his buzz. "Today we are happy but not euphoric … It's almost 1am, tomorrow is Thursday. We could have had more rest." He didn't add "If only we'd beaten Saudi Arabia, we could have rotated here, but could we make things easy on ourselves? No we could not. We're our own worst enemies. Clowns, the lot of us, and me the clowniest of them all." But we all knew what he meant
