Who will win this group?

I was mainly talking about the context of this thread which is the group.

 

Yes i replied above. We will see..

 

The same could apply as the tournament goes on.

As for saying the same could be said about Croatia, maybe. I just think a team like Argentina still has a nucleus of players who have made three consecutive summer Finals. Croatia looked down last World Cup and up and down in the Euro. I am waiting to see if they can take another step.

 

so we both played with new tactics

we both played without key players

and we schooled you

but it means absolutely nothing. OK sure if you want to believe that.

 

Would not be the first time that a team from former yugoslavia goes far after years of average results. I reckon you should look at the past results between the 3 semi finals of yugoslavia and croatia.
We have been there already and we will do it again soon or later.

 

Due to the way the Groups look I would say Serbia has the better chance than Croatia does. Just the luck of the draw as they say.

 

Possible. Being half half i want both to go far anyway. I would not be surprised that Serbia gets a great result there. Especially in Russia.
I believe both can do damages. But Croatia can go very far if the team is in good days whatever the draw is.

 

Curious stat: Argentina scored only 19 goals in 18 games during WC qualifying.

Compare that with Brazil who scored 41 goals in 18 games during WC qualifying.

Are defenses in CONMEBOL that good, or are Argentina having trouble scoring goals?

Funny the way things work at the actual WC, watch Argentina get to the final again while Brazil are knocked out in the 2nd round

 

Nigeria goals per game in qualifying: 2
Iceland goals per game in qualifying: 1.6
Croatia goals per game in qualifying: 1.6
Argentina goals per game in qualifying: 1

 

Now let's look at the defense

Croatia goals conceded per game in qualifying: 0.4
Nigeria goals conceded per game in qualifying: 0.6
Iceland goals conceded per game in qualifying: 0.7
Argentina goals conceded per game in qualifying: 0.9

 

It is just very difficult for me and others to predict Croatia to make a deep run in this tournament when they could do that .... ...but they could also finish in last place too. The Group is too close to call.

 

Yes, you conveniently forget the little detail that out of the 4 teams, it's Argentina that played (by far) against the highest ranked opponents.

 

I saw most of Argentina's matches and I think we can attribute it to many different factors. But the main one being the managers not really knowing what they were doing. Which then was like a domino effect when a new manager is expected to do a miracle in a short amount of time and implement new tactics and players and then not live up to expectations. Then another manager gets called up and has to do the same thing. It is counter-productive.

 

True. Like I said, qualifying form often has no bearing on actual tournament performance. However, Argentina has the lowest number of goals scored by any CONMEBOL qualifier in this WC. There is an issue here. Will Sampaoli fix it in time?

 

That is the million dollar question.
I think he can.
But if for some reason he doesn't, Oh boy the crap show and crises mode the media and fans will be in. Bring out the pop corn.

 

The managers did not know what they were doing? What did they do wrong or different?

Anyway, now that I think about it, I forgot to take into account injuries and availability. Were Aguero, Di Maria, and Higuain available for most of the qualifying matches? I know Messi missed a few games by suspension.

 

I will let the Argentinos get into the details but let's just say you are on the right track with player selection too.

I expect Sampaoli to have this team mentally ready to attack and have a better sense of urgency to win,

 

Yes because it was a friendly. What about these previous friendlies results in past years that really meant nothing in real games:

Germany 2-4 Argentina (2014)
Germany 1-3 Argentina (2012)
Italy 2-1 Spain (2011)
Belgium 3-1 Italy (2015)
Albania 1-0 France (2015)
Canada 1-1 Iceland (2015)
Qatar 1-1 Iceland (2017)
Russia 3-3 Spain (2017)
Russia 1-0 Portugal (2015)
Germany 2-3 England (2016)
Germany 1-2 USA (2015)
England 2-0 France (2015)

These are just a few examples. There is a lot more. Seriously forget about friendlies. If we judged by friendlies, England would have been strong favorites to win Euro 2016, and yet they performed horribly.

 

Messi missed A LOT of games:
Ecuador (H), Paraguay (A), Brazil (H), Colombia (A), Venezuela (A), Peru (A), Paraguay (H), Bolivia (A).

Of those games Argentina only won against Colombia.

In the other 10 games he did play, Argentina won 6, tied 3 and lost 1 (To Brazil away).

Agüero and Higuain played most of the qualifiers (poorly I must say) and then missed the last 4 games. Di Maria played almost all games I think.

 

How about you post all the friendlies THAT DO accurately reflect what happens in reality. I am sure those will be far more numerous than these rare examples you have dug up to prove your point.

 

About the coaches, we had 3 of them during the qualifiers:

First Martino under whom we had a rough start (only 2 points out of 9), but then got back on track with 3 consecutive wins. Unfortunately for Martino Messi missed the first 4 matches due to injury. The team however was playing ok at the time he left. Martino resigned due to the lost Copa America finals (and other issues with the federation) and then AFA hired a really awful defensive-minded coach like Edgardo Bauza. Under him the team played terrible football with an old-fashioned 4-4-2 and lost a lot of points, leaving us in 5th place when he got fired after losing to Bolivia.

Finally, Sampaoli took over for the last 4 games, 3 of them were draws (with the team showing notorious nerves due to the feeling of a possible WC drop out). Then the last game came and Messi saved the team with a hattrick.

 

Friendlies mean a lot to supporters of countries like Iran and Nigeria. I mean they secretly know that in the actual WC a rd of 16 exit would be the most they could ever hope for, so these games give them a little something to feel good about until reality pays a visit.

 

I understand, but the bigger teams do not play well in them. That means that they cannot expect the big teams to play poorly in the tournament like they did in friendlies. They must know that it is just a one friendly game to celebrate and then get back to reality.

 

I really cannot think of any honestly. The only two I can think of are these:

France 2-0 Germany (2015), France 2-0 Germany (Euro 2016)
Germany 3-2 Brazil (2013), Brazil 1-7 Germany (World Cup) (Even this does not really reflect it as it was a much bigger win).

I seriously cannot think of any others except the obvious ones like big teams beating shitty teams.