Why you just might have to be terrible in your World Cup first game

Do you now have to do very poorly in your first game of a World Cup in order to win it?

That now seems to be the case.

In the 2022 edition at Qatar, Lionel Messi and Argentina unbelievably lost their first game to the vastly inferior, that is football-wise, Saudi Arabia, but ended up winning it for the first and probably only time for Messi to finally earn him the only laurel missing in his great achievements.

And just four years later this year at the US, Mexico, Canada edition, Spain was so poor in its first game against a country that could be said to have no football pedigree whatsoever, Cape Verde, that they played out a very disappointing and globally shocking goalless draw.

But the reward for Spain?

It went the whole way and won the final against the great Messi, no less.

So, you get the drift now?