I'm not quite sure about business domination over the sports when USA also allows Trinidad to prevent them from qualifying although USA is arguably favored by FIFA to regularly participate in the final tournament for the main business reason. The more obvious case is Ecuadorian want to see Messi in World Cup. (Most Ecuadorian will be happy to see Argentina as a World Champion ?)
The USA doesn’t have an iconic player that draws crowds in the same way Argentina historically has. And I don’t know if they were inclined to bribe Trinidad & Tobago. Ecuador probably doesn’t care, they simply were not going to give a full commitment to the match and if they could receive some bribes on the side by the Argentinian federation and its star players, they wouldn’t think twice and accept. Furthermore, Ecuador was losing every game for months now at home and away. To make matters worse, they fielded a B side. Argentina were really not in any serious danger.
Not just Argentina. FIFA can't afford to have a WC with no Messi. Having said that, I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt even though I've already read two books on how ridiculously corrupt the organization is lol.
You betcha! But I’m not giving FIFA any benefit of the doubt. Having said that, I think this game in particular came down to a pact between AFA and the Ecuadorean football association. The old saying, ‘you scratch my back then I’ll scratch yours’. Things like this is nothing new. Argentina and Uruguay have done it in the past and present WC qualifiers when they met eachother. They settled for draws under convenient terms.
The AFA had barricades outside its offices so that, in the event that Argentina failed to qualify, they would be protected from any subsequent riots. It's easy to downplay it in hindsight. Messi just went to one of the hardest venues in South American qualification and scored a hat-trick of excellent goals when his team needed him to. The pressure was there and he delivered, unlike all of his teammates who have been woeful in this campaign. This doesn't answer any questions about Messi, we already knew how good he is, but he did come up big when needed, even if it was against under-par opposition.
Argentina are a mess, they depend too much on one player and teammates seem to just want to give Messi the ball and for him to resolve things. This can work against certain minnows but won’t fly against the elite sides. The feeling is if he is shutdown, who will step up and deliver? Shades of Italia ‘90 are looming and it doesn’t look good.
No need for a fix when the whole of Ecuador, from the President of the nation to the public and the players themselves want to see Messi at the World Cup and their team was already out.
That's it, Brazil or Argentina are everyone's second favorite side in the rest of South America. Like you wrote earlier, Ecuador was only going to let Argentina beat Argentina...it was obvious they agreed to take it easy on Messi.
Like I said, it was a weird game, with only one side interested while the other seemed only interested in the opening minute. Also weird how flat and naive Argentina were to concede that opening goal from the start. Whether they agreed or not is unknown but what is clear is how poor they were defensively. It was a naive Ecuadorean side, which fielded many inexperienced players. Ecuador is going through their worst generation since the days of the 1970s and early 1980s. Long gone is the pride of players like Aguinaga, Capurro, Tenorio, Hurtado, Kaviedes, etc. At this point they are, along with Bolivia, the weakest sides in the continent. What they failed to do is what Uruguay, Venezuela and Peru accomplished: isolate and block Messi and have others beat them. It worked but Ecuador failed in all quarters.
That’s the flaw in the system when teams are already eliminated and nothing but pride to play for. There should be some way to incentivize these teams, like teams that finish third in the groups in the CL qualify to the Europa league. Something should be invented to have those teams take these games more seriously.
This is a decent article (although I am not Wilson's greatest fan; in some respects he turns the world upside-down) https://www.si.com/soccer/2017/10/1...k-world-cup-qualifying-maradona-legacy-debate I recommend to read the article. This aside, it is certainly not impossible. Think about the 2010 WCQ handball by Thierry Henry, and the FIFA pay-off to Ireland that was completed unusually quick after the match. Under a "take it or leave it" guise. This incident, like a few others, is perhaps only the tip of the iceberg. Various comments by Sampaoli and predecessors on "Messi does not owe a World Cup, the world owes a World Cup to Messi" is something I have always disliked. It is a corrosive mentality sprouted by Blatter et al. ever since 2010. Despite the woeful form, you can bet that Argentina is - as always - a guaranteed seed again, guaranteeing a relatively easy path until the quarter finals (with hopefully few injuries, suspensions, strains).
What I find incredible is how euphoric some people have turned after that Argentinian wIn. This was like Ecuador’s C squad, virtually improvised and interested in not spoiling Argentina’s aspirations in next year’s WC. It’s incredible how people react in the heat of the moment. The entire backline of Ecuador defended poorly, completely naive especially their number 23. On top of that Messi played well this time as a finisher. As for FIFA, Argentina will be a top seed and probably receive an accesible path until the quarterfinals. And Messi will be well protected by the officials. You can bet on that.
The article glosses over many issues. It glorifies what is an exaggeration of a victory over an eliminated team, with many novices that had no experience playing together. Furthermore, it fails to address many questions: who were Argentina’s opponents before those finals and why has Argentina failed to beat good sides ? Why has Messi been incapable of being determinant in those games ? What has stopped him ? He’s 30 years old and has been given more caps and shots at titles than previous Argentinian legends, but has come up small in stark contrast to lesser known Argentinian players. These are the questions that should be properly addressed. Not the euphoria of beating a minnow that fielded inexperienced youngsters.
That would be totally fine without ifs and buts, if they stick to it for several cycles but they always change the method. It really depends on the used criteria. In 2006 for example Italy was 12th in the FIFA ranking, got seeded, and we know what happened next (played Australia and then Ukraine in the first two KO games). Even FIFA themselves state in their documents that draws and pots are made by "taking into consideration sports, geographic and economic factors as far as is possible." I have no real issue with the FIFA ranking being used (consistently) although there is many research out there that it is a weak predictor and reflector of strength. Weaker than other popular methods, including the Elo rating/ranking.
Yes, they are also ranked 4th at the moment in Elo, which is a much better (really a lot better) than the heavily politicized FIFA ranking. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Football_Elo_Ratings#Top_100 Plenty research out there showing how much better it is in reflecting relative strength.
It’s a great thing for Messi, which Pelé in 1966 and Maradona in 1982 would have loved to benefit from.
Pele received protection in 1970 and Diego did in 1986, it's good to let geniuses create their masterpieces. Let's see what Messi does next year.
Some things start to surface now which explains even more about that match. Apparently some Ecuadorean players were partying the night before the match until the morning hours. It’s evident that they didn’t care for this game and handed it on a silver platter for Argentina. This explains the lack of discipline and professionalism from Ecuador. In light of this revelation the victory for Argentina has significantly dropped in merit. http://www.espnfc.com/ecuador/story...-players-after-reports-of-pre-argentina-party
For anyone with a modicum of knowledge about football and not blinded by intolerance, just watching the match should be clear enough proof that there were shenanigans going on. Turns out nearly half the team on the field were hungover. Once again I am right and my contrincants have been shown to be mistaken. @Dearman please take note of this.
People in the heat of the moment get carried away when they support a player or team but don’t rationalize and think what was transpiring before the match started. The victory in the altitude of Quito is overrated and should be disregarded as a legitimate win since Ecuador were dropping points at home against other teams when they still mathematically had chances to qualify. Imagine now that they were eliminated, how would they respond? Well the article clearly has shed light to that.
Posters such as @celito , @Rattlehead and @afar have made it clear in the Argentine forum that they will not stand for any dissent against Messi. What butters me is that the attitude of the Messiah army borders on intolerance. It's not so much because Ecuador was eliminated, for example Venezuela and Trinidad Tobago were eliminated but still played to win against opponents with high stakes on the match. It's because the Ecuadorians want to see Messi at the WC and they had nothing to gain or lose.
Because your points are absolute nonsense ! You said how often does a goalie get megged on a shot ... pretty damn often. Unless you don't watch football, you should know this. And the comment about the defender sliding on the 3rd goal makes no sense at all. That's a normal play. The only contention you may have is the defender getting dispossessed in the 2nd goal trying to pass the ball. But how many times have you seen Messi jump defenders like that ? That's not out of the ordinary. If you want something shady, Chile's 2nd goal vs Ecuador where the defender stumbles and loses the ball would be much more suspect. You're not wrong that the opposition was not high quality. They were using 2nd string players. And it showed. Before Argentina's 2nd goal, Ecuador were actually pressing them. There are just no obvious signs of collusion as you're making it out to be.