Argentina v Nigeria GOLD MATCH (R)

[Plxix]

Thank you China for scheduling the Final at noon in 107 degrees of friggin heat. Who's the dumbass Chinese that put this together? Stupid.

What a waste of a good match up.

[DaPrince84]

Jaun Roman Riquelme is the classiest Argentine player i've ever seen.
true... he was nice enough not to show up today

[Volrath]

Jaun Roman Riquelme is the classiest Argentine player i've ever seen.
Do I detect a hint of sarcasm here? :D

[Alberto]

I think the number of fouls reflect the reality my friend...


It's getting harder and harder to like, much less root for Argentina. They are arrogant. They cheat and are sore losers too boot. I was hoping for a competitive match, which it was not. No more high noon starts.

[Alberto]

Thank you China for scheduling the Final at noon in 107 degrees of friggin heat. Who's the dumbass Chinese that put this together? Stupid.

What a waste of a good match up.

Because someone wanted the final at the Birds Nest. There is no way they could have played the match at this venue at any other time. Athletics, track and field is on tonight. The last night of the competition. A better choice would have been an alternate site like Shanghai or the Beijing Workers Stadium.

Temperatures were at 90 degrees with 26 percent relative humidity. Not too bad with the low humidity, but the water break was a good idea.

[Diego Maradona]

End of the day Argentina won, so who cares

I think 2010 could be ours :cool:

[Alberto]

the only a%s%ole here are the people who try to take away from Argentina's achievements.

All Respect to Nigeria. They are the kings of africa and their skills are feared by all teams. But I will not accept someone coming up with excuses against Argentina.


It's hard to like Argentina anymore. Messi has great skill, but he is an asshole. He cheats as do many of the Argentinian players. They flop too much. They complain and look to the referee all the time. It's actually gotten worse over the years. Congrat's on the win, but your team that I use to admire so much is truly not worthy of my respect. They need to learn sportsmanship and lose the arrogance. Nos comprendemos che.

[Alberto]

What I don't understand is why nigeria did take more long shots just outside the box? that is their most killer skill.. as we saw against Belgium


That's a good point. I thought Argentina defended well and really marked well. A number of potential long distance shots were marked, some were blocked, but most shots from distance were terrible. Very inaccurate, wide right, wide left and most way over the crossbar.

[Pekerman]

please stop embarassing yourself.

[dna77054]

And I would like to give props to all involved in this match except the schedulers. The heat really hurt the match. Both teams played to win instead of not to lose. Pretty even game that could have gone either way.

And a shout out to the ref who except for 2 strange calls did a great job. Anybody know why the hell he called back a throw-in in the first half for Argentina who then re-threw the ball? That made no sense and I do not think there is anything in the rules to allow for it.

I also thought the yellow at the end to Riquilme for timewasting was unwarranted because Nigeria were 5 yards from the ball when he issues the yellow. Back them up then restart the clock.

[Antonio81]

Didn´t have time to skim through the thread...Both teams played well, Argentina being slightly the better team. They posessed the ball more(until the end of the game when they allowed the Nigerians to come at them.) Nigeria lacked a striker to put away their chances; the team as a whole improved since the 1996 winners, but the their individual talent has gone down considerably.

Messi followed in the footsteps of the rest of his Barcelona teamates and became an arrogant asshole, and the Argentines did quite a bit of diving throughout the game. Still were deserved winners the way they played througout the cup.

[Dr. Know]

I've read that a few times here. How exactly is Messi an arrogant asshole?

[Dr. Know]

not sure if you watched the match... but Nigeria's defense neutralized Messi completely... Riquelme was on self check.. Kun had a shocker... they really did not create many clear chances, and the goal was on a counter....

Riquelme was one of the few Argentina players generating anything in the first half were Messi and Kun were invisible. In the second half he held back a bit that's true.

However Argentina did create more chances than Nigeria who only looked extremely threating in patches. Especially towards the end where Argentina for some reason decided to bunker.

if Nigeria finishes better, they put at least one goal on the board... most of the game was played in front of Argentina's goal...

Most of the game? Wow what a crazy exaggeration. The first half was all Argentina for the most part except for a 10 minute patch or so. The second half was pretty much played on both sides except towards the end where Argentina held back and Nigeria attacked more. To claim that most of the fame was played it front of Argentina's goal is ridiculous.


if anything, Argentina's talent came through (messi's passing), but they were not better... not even close

Overall Argentina were the better team, though not by much. As I said Nigeria had some patches where they looked extremely dangerous but Argentina would always come back with a chance of their own. Nigeria ended on a strong note but they weren't better overall.

[Maruti]

Nigeria lacked a striker to put away their chances; the team as a whole improved since the 1996 winners, but the their individual talent has gone down considerably.

Sorry but b^*^s*^&.

This was a better team, but talent wise it it just as talented as the 1996 team. The only difference being, that there is only one Okocha. Nonetheless players like Apam, Kaita, Adeleye, Okonkwo, Ajilore, Obinna, Odemwingie, Anichebe, Olufemi, Adefemi have just as much individual talent as there 1996 counterparts.

I believe however the most talented player from the Olympic squad didn't play the final... Edu Ogbuke was god sent in the quarters and semis. I believe his impact on Nigeria is as big as Okocha's in 1996 or Messi's in the 2008 squad.

I feel very sad for two reasons:
Both teams were playing very minimal football due to the weather.
Siasia not putting on Ogbuke, who is the star of the Nigeria side at this tournament.

I also believe that a Nigeria side made of the best players of the Olympic side, several players like Enyeama, the Uche brothers and Mikel plus several u17 talents make a squad deadly enough to win the World Cup in style.

[aerez]

LOL! I love the haters. This kind of hate isn't new to Argentinians my friends, this is why Argentina is the dark horse and the underdog, not Nigeria. Everyone wanted Nigeria to win, who knows why? It's not like Argentina is overly successful in the Men`s tournament like Brazil or Italy in recent years, but we get the most hate.

I guess it reflects with the passion and quality that still eminates from a country that still produces quality. This hate has been around a long time, before Maradona and amplified with Maradonas arrival. (But soccers fans will love Argentina club football and praise the players on an individual basis.)

Argentinos, El Equipo beat all the toughest teams in the tournament and has gone undefeated in two Olympic games. We destroyed Brazil who were determined to win Gold.

That's all she wrote.

[Warbuxx]

Could somebody explain the rationale for the scheduling? When was the match time decided? Was there a change? And was this an IOC move or a FIFA (I doubt it) move?

It made no sense at all and we now continue to have a string of mediocre to poor soccer finals in major tournaments.

[Maruti]

Most of the game? Wow what a crazy exaggeration. The first half was all Argentina for the most part except for a 10 minute patch or so. The second half was pretty much played on both sides except towards the end where Argentina held back and Nigeria attacked more. To claim that most of the fame was played it front of Argentina's goal is ridiculous.

I basically agree. Albeit Argentina was shut out for most of the game. They had a couple of dangerous looking crosses, plays and long shots, but basically they all amounted to nothing and mostly were very deftly and clinically dealt with by the defense. There were three chances that didn't fit this pattern: the goal, the header by I believe Di Maria in the first half and the last second intervention by Vanzekin at the beginning of the second.

On the other hand Nigeria had less from the game, but it was Nigeria that had more clear chances to score, where all that was needed was to direct the ball to the net. Especially chances from Obinna, Odewingie, Anichebe and Promise went begging...

Essentially Argentina always looked dangerous, but Nigeria for the most part of the game looked favourable to score. They missed the clinical finishing of the

One more thing: The players with the best long shot capabilities had no chance to shoot from long. Okonkwo with Adefemi were told not to venture into attack too aften and Edu was on the bench... Hence no repeat of the long shots from the Belgium game.

Basically I don't think Siasia used the full potential of the squad. Instead of playing to Nigeria's strengths, the coach played to counter Argentina's strengths.

[El_Gaucho]

Another thing I regret about this game other than the time it was played..

I can't get that damn Nigerian trumpet tune out of my head!!!

aaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

stop it!!!

[Maruti]

Could somebody explain the rationale for the scheduling? When was the match time decided? Was there a change? And was this an IOC move or a FIFA (I doubt it) move?

It made no sense at all and we now continue to have a string of mediocre to poor soccer finals in major tournaments.

Yeah... the last good finals I remember was actually Nigeria-Argentina and Cameroon-Spain at the Olympics in 1996 and 2000 respectively. The last interesting World Cup final was in 1986, whilst the European finals that I remember were Germany-Czech republic and France-Italy in 1996 and 2000 respectively. I also really liked the 1994 African Nations Cup final between Nigeria and Zambia, as well as the classic Nigeria-Cameroon final on 2000.

As you can see we haven't had a good final at any event since 2000...

Although I take that back... there were several extremely good finals at youth tournament (i.e. Argentina-Nigeria u21 2005 and Nigeria-Spain u17 2007).

[Volrath]

true... he was nice enough not to show up today
Tell that to the 3 Nigerians who were constantly marking him and had to resort to kicking his shins all game long to try and get the ball from him:o