England goalkeeper Jordan Pickford was prepared for everything in the World Cup semi-final but probably did not expect a vital piece of information to land in the hands of opponents Argentina and go viral.
Like others have done in the past, Pickford had attached a piece of paper to his water bottle with printed notes on how Argentina players would take their penalties in the case of a potential shootout.
This never happened, though, because Argentina clinched a 2-1 comeback victory in stoppage time before their players stumbled upon the bottle after the final whistle.
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Superstar Lionel Messi and his teammates laughed as they studied the notes and passed the bottle around.
Fitness coach Luis Martin shared an according picture on Instagram and wrote “What a pity that we didn’t have the same plan.”
He later deleted the post but the photos and a video had by then already gone viral.
Messi was very curious about the notes on himself. Credit: X@BenGrounds Germany’s ‘cheat sheet’ notes that they used to defeat Argentina in the 2006 quarter-finals are now written into World Cup folklore.
Back then German goalkeeper Jens Lehmann used the notes, which were just scribbled on small piece of paper and, according to Lehmann, “pretty inillegible”, to great effect.
The ‘cheat sheet’ was later auctioned off for a children’s charity and bought for €1 million by businessman Utz Claassen. He then donated the note to a museum.
However, Lehmann later admitted that one of his famous saves in that match had nothing to do with the notes.
When Esteban Cambiasso went to take his penalty, there were no notes about him, however, the cheat sheet still played its part.
Lehmann took his time, reading the piece of paper, and then stared at Cambiasso, nodded knowingly, and of course was able to keep out Cambiasso’s strike.
– 7NEWS.com.au