Teammate Paul Wanner rightly criticized
1 min readPaul Wanner was allowed on Monday evening, for the first time, to start from kickoff on behalf of Austria during a World Cup match. Wanner and company played the second group match of the 2026 World Cup against reigning world champions Argentina.
Ultimately, thanks to two goals by Lionel Messi, the Argentines proved too strong for the Alpine country, winning 2-0. At the start of the match, Messi missed a penalty.
When was eventually substituted in the 68th minute for the good old Marko Arnautović, former player of FC Twente, in the hunt for the equalizer. This ultimately did not happen and in the 95th minute Argentina definitively said goodbye to Austria.
Afterwards, defender and midfielder Konrad Laimer was not pleased with the refereeing, which only showed the first yellow card in the 76th minute to an Argentina player (Facundo Medina). ''We had good periods in possession, but in the end a duel is decided by the small things. I don't know how many fouls they committed, but it felt like they could have made 700 unpunished. Only after seventy minutes did they get the first yellow card,'' Laimer said after the match to the outlet Sport1.
Still, the Austrian doesn’t want to talk too much about the officiating. ''For some reason, nowadays no yellow cards are being shown. I know I shouldn’t worry about it, because it’s pointless. It does make things difficult. We weren’t perfect ourselves, of course. If you give the ball away unnecessarily, they are incredibly dangerous on the counter. When Lionel Messi gets the ball, he already knows what to do with it. He’s very, very good at that,'' said Laimer.
Comments4
Whoever decided that lineup is braver than me lol... but if Lozano starts cutting inside early, its either a banger or pure chaos. Either way, im here for the chaos. 👀
🔥🔥🔥 the way they said the plan is to stretch the pitch is exactly why teams dont know whether to sit or chase. If the wingers stay wide and Gakpo keeps drifting inside, thats a problem for every back line.
"We need the balance between speed and control" yeah but control comes first when our defenders have those risky outlets. I wanna see Tillman or Veerman drop smarter, dont just sprint forward and hope.
If PSV go with that same pressing trigger again, we better win the second balls because our buildup gets exposed when the fullbacks step in. Need that midfield to screen the half-spaces, otherwise itll be long nights.