Argentina : World cup 2018 Russia discussion

Mbappe is the new shiny toy that commentators and reporters are going crazy for. I understand he won a World Cup but there are articles out there that are being published on how he is the next king of football. Give it a rest already.

Mbappe relies mostly on his speed, he has technical ability but he is one ACL injury away from losing that speed. And a player that stops and goes at that rate is due for a serious knee injury, all you have to do is look at the history of athletes that have that stop and go reaction. Your body can only take so much. I'd rather have a player who can get away from his defender by skill and grace than have a player who blows by players. The longevity of that type of player never lasts.

 

I agree with you, Rattlehead. I was being sarcastic. If you see the video I posted in my message, it shows Messi very gracefully gliding past Kante, one from an absolute standing position with absolutely no space to work with.

Kind of what SupaMario mentions that he’d much rather have players who beat people with skill and artistry.

 

Yes, we were horrible - and France was much better than us. I agree.

But the best team does not always win.

We were leading the World Champions 2-1....we really could have won with some coaching adjustments.

Then again, we could not have. But we never gave ourselves a chance due to gross mismanagement of the game.

It was the only time France was ever behind.

Horrible World Cup for us, but despite everything negative for us, we had a great chance to win.

 

Sampaoli tried to install his High Pressing philosophy with our slow players , His tactics costed us.
If we could have defensive minded for knock out stages we would have made it through.

 

You are being delusional, we won one game out of 4, we couldn't even beat Iceland, you need to wake up to reality.

 

Lol, Laurel and Hardy, the 2 Ronnies, Morecambe & Wise, SuperMario & Rattlehead. The 2 most predictable posts ever, 2 sad bitter people who can't even see the joy of a 19 year old winning the world cup and scoring in the final. Bet the 2 of them are waiting for Mbappe to break a leg so they can celebrate. So very sad.

 

There, there little woman. Don't take things so personal.

 

Well said, you at least have a grasp on reality. Argentina were an utter shambles at this world cup, a rabble as opposed to a football team. Even Iceland looked like the would score against us every time they attacked, Willy groped around like a blind man in a brothel.

Against Croatia we looked lime a team that had been on a 20 hour bender and then gone straight from the pub onto the football field. We were a disorganised, ill disciplined shower. The fact that yiu have posters coming on here saying that if we had somehow got past France (ha, ha, ha) we m8ght have won it shows you how out of touch with planet earth they are. How is a team that has a midfield of a 34 year old Masch (and I love that guy), a 32 year old, completely past it and rubbish, Perez and a 30 year old, erratic as ever, Banega and any side that contains Rojo ever going to win anything, how? We were such a poor side that Meza could get in the starting line up.

 

Bet you read the obituary columns in newspapers to cheer yourself up.

 

We were ahead for such little time against France, its hard to even say we were leading. There wasn't even enough time to react to change the shape and make a substitution before Pavard had scored the goal of his life.

That being said... Even IF we had had time, we had an incompetent coach with no idea how to shut down the opposition and hold onto a result. Remember, Sampaoli has admitted he doesn't plan or strategize, he just does everything based on feeling. Its quite possible he didn't even know who Mbappe was.

The other thing I will say about Sampaoli is that his lack of strategizing really killed us from dead balls. In a world cup where so many goals were scored from corners and free kicks, Argentina was HORRIBLE at these as we were with everything else.

Sure, there were a few times when Otamendi's got his head to a corner, and Mercado's goal against France came indirectly from a set piece, but things like these are bound to happen. No one was making near post runs, there was no screening/picking basketball style the way England did it to get someone open... And to think, even Maradona's Argentina, with Mancuso the brains of the play, drew up a play against Nigeria for Heinze diving header... No way Sampaoli's Argentina would ever have scored a goal like that... And then Passarella's training friend work to create Zanetti's goal against England? Forget about it! Not even in his wildest dreams could the moron Sampaoli think of something like that. Look at France's goal against Uruguay- the most organized team at the world cup- its all made by Griezmann's stutter step and the players faking their runs- that move was right off the training pitch.

So in my opinion, no Argentina did not have a good chance to win this world up. For Argentina to have had any chance in this tournament, you would have had to have never hired Bauza and given it someone with authority like Ramon Diaz

 

Brazil still did a lot better than Argentina in the World Cup and in WCQ.

 

Are you always this offended by an opinion you disagree with? Moreover, more than a few Argentines echoed this very sentiment after your team was eliminated.

I'm flattered you lurked in the Brazil forums and quoted my post, though.

You guys have the material to rebuild. Good luck.

 

I don't think he could ever help himself. He's acting like the comments were made in his forum, but he went nearly 20 pages back to highlight those comments. Somethings will never change around here.

 

If only you cared about U.S. politics as much as you care about football..........

Did you feel better after writing that post? Because you and some other sourpuss here were talking about how much you both hate Brazil and you were told to "channel your hatred."

 

Just got back from the WC so here's my thoughts on Argentina.

In summary this was the worst Argentina team I've seen since I started watching the WC in 1994.

I went to Argentina vs Iceland and after 20 minutes I thought it would be a good WC for Argentina. They completely dominated and I expected a 4-0 score. For some reason Argentina lost momentum in the 2nd half and although I didn't realize it at the time, it was a sign of things to come for the rest of the tournament.

After the Croatia disaster I expected Argentina to recover and beat Nigeria comfortably but I was sadly mistaken. Argentina was just as poor in this must win game as they were vs Croatia except that the opponent was weaker. Messi scored a wonder goal and Rojo scored a scrappy goal to put Argentina in the second round but after watching this game I was convinced France would knock them out.

The France game had a flattering score for Argentina. Mpabbe did whatever he wanted and Argentina gave up 3 straight goals for the 2nd time in this tournament. Germany in 2010 was the only side to embarrass Argentina at the WC in my lifetime yet both Croatia and France were able to do that in a span of 1 week.

I don't want to dwell too much on individual player selection because I think Argentina's problems are bigger than that but Sampaoli made some boneheaded decisions. Mascherano was no longer good enough and should've either been a sub or not on the team at all. Bringing on Higuain as a 'super sub' was ridiculous and showed how out of touch Sampaoli was. He also did nothing to adjust based on the team's strengths and weaknesses. I hated how Argentina played under Sabella but it made sense if Sabella felt the team was weak defensively. This year's team was clearly awful defensively so Sampaoli should've had more bodies behind the ball and used a more defensive style. He could've had 7-8 players behind the ball for the France games with Aguero and Messi up top and Di Maria making late runs. Everything he touched turned to sh*t and he did the impossible by actually being a worse manager than Maradona.

For Argentina to improve the AFA needs to get their act together. Argentina has had one of its best generations ever do nothing over the past decade. All they have is a WC final appearance which was unimpressive, and 2 embarrassing Copa final losses. Argentina has been in chaos in 2 of the last 3 WCQ campaigns. The optimistic side of me thinks with all this embarrassment and 2 Copas coming up, Argentina can improve in time for the 2022 WC but lets see who they appoint as manager. I fully expect Messi to be around but I'm starting to feel sorry for the guy. It is true he is not a leader but he gives it his all and he can only do so much without good tactics and an adequate supporting cast.

Pekerman was Argentina's last good coach since he chose players based on squad balance rather than on reputation. Whether its him or someone else, I hope the new coach finds a way to develop chemistry amongst 11 players and is able to do so within 2 years of taking the job rather than this nonsense we saw from Sampaoli of changing the squad every game.

 

BTW, the best 19 year old player I ever saw in my life was Messi. What he was doing against the best of the best in Spain and the Champions League at that time was amazing. He was so good Asier Del Horno could only try to stop him by repeatedly fouling him over 2 games and unfortunately succeeded.

Mbappe is the second best 19 year old I've ever seen. He is the real deal. I do not worry too much about injury as these guys have the best doctors, personal trainers etc, who will advise him on how to adjust his movements to avoid injury. Plus, Messi scared me early in his career because of his reliance on speed, weak frame, and amount of contact that he took but through discipline, hard work, and professional help he has been healthy for 95% of his career.

I think Mbappe could end up WPOY in 2-3 years time. Even if he doesn't improve at this point he's going to score 25 goals a season. He's capable of doing 50+. He'll be in Spain or England in no time.

 

Watch this...

A name I saw a couple days ago reminds me a lot of the hype of Mbbape. A lot of people were saying this player was going to challenge Messi in a few years time for WPOTY(This was perhaps 2008-2009). He had blistering speed, strength, left foot, right foot, he could do it all, and he was only 18 at the time... It was Alexandre Pato.

http://www.goal.com/en/news/1785/ba...l-win-fifa-world-player-of-the-year-in-future

@Rattlehead, you're up.

 

I saw all those guys you mentioned when they were 19 including Pato in person at the U20 WC and none of them were as good as Mbappe at the same age. The kid is special. You wont hear me compare him to Messi and Ronaldo however because those guys are among the top 5 of all time in my opinion due to their longevity. Find me 2 other attacking players in history that dominated for over a decade. I wonder if it'll ever happen again.