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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Sport
Colin Millar

Roy Keane brutally points finger of blame at Angel di Maria as Argentina lose - "My god!"

Roy Keane criticised the role of Angel di Maria in Saudi Arabia's winning goal in their shock World Cup victory over Argentina.

Quickfire goals from Salah Al-Shehri and Salem Al-Dawsari at the start of the second half turned the game on its head after Lionel Messi's early penalty had given Argentina the lead. The South American giants had three goals ruled out for offside before the break and were later caught cold by their opponents.

Keane and Graeme Souness had differing opinions about whether the Argentina penalty should've been given, with the former insistent that it was not a foul. The former Manchester United captain then turned his ire towards Di Maria in his role for the winning Saudi Arabia goal.

After Al-Shehri's equaliser, Argentina appeared to lose their composure and within minutes found themselves behind. Winger Al-Dawsari was first onto the ball as a Saudi goal-bound effort was deflected out to the edge of the box. He took a step to his right before curling a shot into the top corner beyond a diving Emiliano Martinez.

The Saudi winning goal was a superb solo effort from Al-Dawsari and must go down as the best goal of the tournament so far, but the Argentine defending left a lot to be desired. Their loss of composure saw them rushing decisions, while Juventus winger Di Maria failed to close down his opponent inside the area.

Keane lamented on ITV Sport after the match: "There's no aggression, there are bodies there, you've got to go attack there, they've lost all composure. They've lost their heads, look at Di Maria… Di Maria, my god!"

Salem Al-Dawsari struck the winning goal for Saudi Arabia in their World Cup shock (Sebastian Frej/MB Media/Getty Images)

Have Your Say! Will Argentina be able to recover from their disastrous World Cup start? Tell us what you think here.

The result will go down as one of the biggest shocks in the history of the World Cup and on a par with Argentina's defeat to Cameroon in their opening clash of the 1990 World Cup. Saudi Arabia had gone 14 matches in the tournament without winning between 1994 and 2018, before defeating Egypt in a group-stage clash.

Argentina had entered the tournament as one of the favourites to lift the trophy and had been 36 matches unbeaten – a run which saw them lift the Copa America title last year.

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