Argentine star Lionel Messi admitted that the loss his national team suffered against their Saudi counterpart 1-2 on Tuesday in the Qatar World Cup represents a "hard blow" and a "painful defeat" according to his statements in the mixed zone at Lusail Stadium.
Argentina suffered a surprising defeat at the start of their journey in the Group C competitions of the finals, which is supposed to be Messi's last, who acknowledged that it is a "very hard blow, and a painful defeat, but we must not lose confidence in ourselves. This group (of players) will not give up. We will try to win against Mexico," on Saturday, in his country's second match.
Lionel Messi expressed his regret for the Argentine players' surrender in the second half against Saudi Arabia on Tuesday but said he was not surprised by the performance of the opponent who is 48 places behind Argentina in the world ranking.
Saudi Arabia won 2-1 against Argentina at Lusail Stadium, in one of the biggest surprises in World Cup history.
Messi told Argentine media after the defeat in Group C, "This situation has not been experienced by this group of players before, it has been a long time since we took such a hard blow, and we did not expect to start like this."
Messi scored ten minutes into the match from a penalty kick, Argentina scored three goals in the first half but they were disallowed due to offside, and in the second half Saudi Arabia scored two goals in five minutes to overturn the result.
Messi said in radio statements, "Because of five minutes of mistakes we made, we lost 2-1, it was really tough, we lost organization and started chasing the ball."
Messi said his team knows the Saudi national team and its ability to harm them despite being the second worst ranked team internationally among the tournament teams.
He said, "We knew they would play well if we let them... They did not surprise us, and we knew (Saudi Arabia) could do that."
Messi added, who his team played 36 matches undefeated before falling against Saudi Arabia, "Obviously, we must win (against Mexico and Poland). It is up to us to fix the mistake we made and return to what we were."
He continued, "We are fine, but the result hurt us, (the defeat) is very bitter, but people must trust this team and that it will not disappoint them, and we will seek to achieve (victory) in the next two matches. We have played this kind of matches before and we will perform well."
He said, "Now it is time to be more united than ever to show our strength."