A video of an extraordinary half-time speech from Saudi Arabia manager Hervé Renard to his players has emerged before they pulled off one of the World Cup’s greatest ever shocks.
The team trailed Argentina 1-0 at half-time and footage has been posted on the official Twitter account of the Saudi team shows Renard bawling at his players via an interpreter to let them known that pressing does not mean standing still so that they can have a picture taken with Lionel Messi!
The one time Cambridge United manager who loved a perfectly-ironed white shirt began with a question “What are we doing here?”
He then says that pressing “Doesn’t mean, Messi, in the middle of the pitch, he has the ball, you stand in front of the defence, take your phone, you can make a picture with him if you want! He has the ball. You are in front of their defence!! He has nobody!!”
The Saudi players are sat in silence as Renard gathers momentum with added hand actions, volume and even includes a quick sprint.
“You don’t feel something!?” he asks. “Did you see what you did!? You don’t feel we are going to come back!? You don’t feel it!? They play relaxed. Come on!! Come on guys!!! This is the World Cup!! Give everything!!!
“When you are at the edge of the box, you are like this! Be concentrated! C’mon! Move yourself!”
Saudi Arabia scored twice in 10 minutes at the start of the second-half after they had fallen behind to a 10th-minute Messi penalty, before holding firm defensively to prevail with an historic 2-1 victory.
The video has also gone viral on TikTok under the headline titled, ‘The most underrated coach in history’.
