Brilliant Iceland hold Argentina to 1-1 draw as Messi misses penalty
By Iceland made a stunning first-ever World Cup appearance on Saturday when they held 2014 runners-up Argentina to a 1-1 draw in a dramatic match where Lionel Messi had a penalty kick saved by Hannes Por Halldorsson.
Messi failed to give his team the lead when his 64th-minute penalty was stopped by Hannes Halldorsson. The Iceland goalkeeper dived to his right and got two hands behind the ball.
Argentina took the lead in the 19th when Sergio Aguero scored with a rising left-footed shot. Alfred Finnbogason equalized for Iceland four minutes later.
Iceland created several first-half chances despite finishing the match with only 27 percent of the possession.
Iceland, by far the smallest country by population to appear at the World Cup, defeated England in the last 16 of Euro 2016 and again inspired by their “thunderclapping” fans ran tirelessly and fought for everything to write another glowing chapter in their short but glorious major tournament story.
“I hope it is going to prove important to us to reach our goal to qualify,” Halldorsson said of the penalty save.
“I did my homework, I looked at a lot of penalties by Messi, and I also looked at how I had been behaving in previous penalties, so I tried to get into their mindset, how they would be thinking about me.
“I think the Argentinians felt a bit frustrated that they weren’t getting through and it was important we equalised so quickly. I guess our game plan worked almost perfectly.”
Argentina coach Jorge Sampaoli said: “We need to find more variety of options going forward. It’s a very competitive group.
“The circumstances around the missed penalty and that led to Leo’s mistake, that’s just another statistic, it’s part of the past… football is like that. We need to be strong as a group, believe in ourselves and know we have all the tools to beat anybody.”
Anthony Nlebem, reporting from Kaliningrad
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