MOSCOW: Iceland coach Heimir Hallgrimson said he had no magic formula to stop Argentina’s Lionel Messi as his side prepare to make their World Cup debut on Saturday.

“I don’t have any magic formula to stop Messi,” Hallgrimson said at Friday’s official pre-match news conference. “He manages to score despite everything.”

Hallgrimson said that the World Cup debutants will try to stop the Argentine talisman collectively.

“It will not be fair to assign a single player to mark Messi,” he said. “We will help mark him together, help each other and play as a team to stop him.

“The Argentina team is full of good players anyways and if we concentrate on one, someone else would score.”

Iceland’s qualification came following their surprise run at the Euro 2016 when they reached the quarter-finals but Hallgrimson was bullish that their achievements in France weren’t a miracle.

“I wouldn’t say it was a miracle,” he said. “You cannot win four matches without playing well.”

Hallgrimson said that the Group ‘D’ opener will be the “biggest game in the history of Icelandic football” before adding that his team’s first target was to get through the group.

Published in Dawn, June 16th, 2018