NIZHNY NOVGOROD, Russia — Poor Willy Caballero, who was supposed to be Argentina’s backup and didn’t ask for any of this. He'll serve his sentence as the meme of the moment. The goalkeeper’s astonishing blunder in the second half of Thursday’s Argentina-Croatia game will be GIF and Not Top 10 fodder for a day or two, and it’ll become emblematic of a World Cup that’s quickly going south for La Albiceleste.
And it was awful. Instead of settling or clearing a rolling, 53rd-minute back pass from Gabriel Mercado, the goalkeeper tried to return the ball with a one-touch lob over Croatia forward Ante Rebiu0107.