Moscow, June 16 (DIN NEWS)<\/b> Argentina were held to a draw by World Cup debutants Iceland Saturday, with Lionel Messi blowing a gilt-edged opportunity for victory when he missed a penalty.<\/p>\n
Sergio Aguero scored an eye-catching opener for the two-time world champions in the 19th minute but it was almost immediately cancelled out by Alfred Finnbogason, whose team then held on in the face of immense pressure.<\/p>\n
It was a major embarrassment for Argentina and raises questions about their ability to claim football’s biggest prize for the first time since 1986.<\/p>\n
As Diego Maradona looked on at Moscow’s Spartak stadium, Messi also failed to respond to his rival Cristiano Ronaldo’s hat-trick for Portugal against Spain a day earlier.<\/p>\n
Messi is yet to win a major international tournament and time is running out with his 31st birthday looming.<\/p>\n
While the result was not on the scale of that Iceland produced to eliminate England from Euro 2016, it was a major boost for the tiny nation, who retain hopes of advancing from a group that also includes Nigeria and Croatia.<\/p>\n
The island nation of 330,000 is the smallest country to ever qualify for the finals but emphatically showed they can mix it with the heavyweights.<\/p>\n
In front of a raucous crowd at the 45,000-capacity venue, Iceland launched into some early physical challenges and rattled Argentina.<\/p>\n
They hit on the counter and gave Argentina a scare when Bjorn Sigurdarson pounced on a loose ball only to rifle his shot just wide of the post.<\/p>\n
Aguero settled Argentine nerves in the 19th minute when he latched onto Marcos Rojo’s pass in the box, turned and hammered home with his left foot.<\/p>\n
True to form, Iceland fought back and Finnbogason netted the equaliser four minutes later, pouncing when Argentine keeper Wilfredo Caballero parried away Gylfi Sigurdsson’s shot for a classic poacher’s goal.<\/p>\n
Argentina continued to press but Messi was subdued in the face of muscular Icelandic defence and the teams went into the break on even terms.<\/p>\n
Messi looked furious as he led his team out for the second half but the Argentines still struggled to dominate.<\/p>\n
They appeared to have secured a breakthrough when Polish referee Szymon Marciniak pointed to the spot after Rurik Gislason brought Maximiliano Meza down in the 63rd minute.<\/p>\n
Messi stepped up for the kick but Hannes Halldorsson guessed correctly and palmed away the Argentine skipper’s side-footed effort.<\/p>\n
His free-kick in the final moments of the game was deflected off the Iceland wall and the Barcelona talisman trudged off the pitch dejected.<\/p>\n
Argentina must regroup before facing Croatia on Nizhny Novgorod on June 21, while Iceland face Nigeria in Volgograd on June 22.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Moscow, June 16 (DIN NEWS) Argentina were held to a draw by World Cup debutants Iceland Saturday, with Lionel Messi blowing a gilt-edged opportunity for victory when he missed a penalty. Sergio Aguero scored an eye-catching opener for the two-time world champions in the 19th minute but it was almost immediately cancelled out by Alfred Finnbogason, whose team then held on in the face of immense pressure. It was a major embarrassment for Argentina and raises questions about their ability to claim football’s biggest prize for the first time since…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13345,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13344"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13344"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13344\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13346,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13344\/revisions\/13346"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}