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When Lionel Messi entered the 2022 World Cup with a fairytale script to end all others resting upon his shoulders, the Argentina national team were stunned by a 2-1 group stage loss to Saudi Arabia.
Shortly after, social media was flooded with 'cope' - a reminder that 2010 World Cup victors Spain also lost their first game, and that Messi's loss wasn't guaranteed to be costly.
Those people were right, whether their intentions were calculated or emotional, and Messi lifted the World Cup trophy against France by the tournament's end - but which champions also had poor starts?
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World Cup winners who made poor starts: Argentina 2022, Spain 2010... and Italy 1982
Between Spain's opening fixture loss, a 1-0 defeat to Switzerland in Group H, and Argentina's World Cup victory, Germany kicked their 2014 campaign off with a comprehensive 4-0 win.
That was over Portugal, during which centre-back Pepe received a red card and Thomas Muller bagged an opening game hat-trick.
But before Spain's group stage loss to World Cup jubilation, many moons had passed since a champion side got off to a poor start.
In 2006, Italy prevailed in their opening clash, as did Brazil in 2002, and France in 1998.
Eventual winners Brazil beat Russia 2-0 in 1994, and West Germany battered Yugoslavia 4-1 in 1990.
In 1986, when Diego Maradona delivered arguably the greatest individual World Cup campaign in history, Argentina kicked off proceedings with a slim 1-0 win over Uruguay.
But, before that, eventual victors Italy delivered a pitiful group stage performance in 1982 - not just in one game, but all three.
With the tournament expanding from 16 teams to 24, an identical scale-up to this edition, Italy drew all three of their Group 1 games and still secured a spot in the later stages.
The results? 0-0 against Poland to begin their campaign, followed by 1-1 stalemates against Peru and Cameroon.
The Italians went on to prevail against West Germany 3-1 in the final, beating reigning champions Argentina by a scoreline of 2-1 in the earlier phases.
Two teams that are expected to be serious contenders in the 2026 edition have endured opening match draws: Spain and the Netherlands.
German economist Joachim Klement has, in fact, predicted the latter to win the tournament outright, after backing the eventual winners with those same calculations at the previous three editions.
If Spain and Argentina's opening game defeats made it seem as if a trend was quietly forming at the World Cup, perhaps a draw could enter the equation this year.
Going full-circle back to 1982, where Italy strung together one of the more impressive later stage runs of any team in the tournament's history, perhaps a poor start is needed to kick teams into gear.
For now, it is reasonable to say that history has proven the opener is less important than many would assume, and the World Cup 2026, shaping up to one of the tournament's best, remains wide open.
