Argentina are absolute shit right now. With these players they are not going far. Messi should have stayed retired. He can't carry teams the way he used to (although he is still clutch as fuk) and his teammates look worthless with the NT.
I couldn't find a Portuguese- or Spanish-language link on Youtube, so I am watching the game with commentary in an eastern European language. They're very disjointed. And I accessed a local Argentine radio - the locutor has no mercy. He's calling them a "bochorno." (I'm guessing this roughly translates as "palhaçada.")
I think they were better in the first half from the comments I am hearing. But this is a broken team. Disjointed and slow.
Argentina look like SPFC did when Bauza was command -- stumbling into results with unconvincing football.
It's incredible how they just can't or won't rebuild. Messi is getting older, but he's still superbly talented. Yet past the midpoint of this qualifying tournament, they are yet to clean house. Not even Maradona was this clueless. I'm at the point of pitying them.
They have some, but they do a poor job of transitioning them to the senior team. Bauza isn't the right coach for them. Stylistically, he's not a fit.
All the more ironic given it's them. They had a mini-golden age not too long ago, winning several U-20 World Cups. They were an impressive celeiro of young talent, and those kids made it to their senior NT. The World Cup is about 500 days away, and while it's not impossible to build a team in that time, it's hard. Scolari did it for us from 2001 to 2002, but few believed he'd win it all. And Scolari had Ronaldo, Rivaldo, Ronaldo Assis, Cafu, and Roberto Carlos to work with. Bauza has Messi and other key talents, but as was said by Celito, they need young blood for their team. I'm not sure they've got enough time.
But it feels like Argentina's getting a different coach almost every year and none of them are able to get these guys to play good attacking football like they should.
Dont forget that Argentina downfall came when they chickened out of Copa'01!! And even though we didn't win it, but it allowed Scolari to use to 3-5-2, a formation that we won WC'02 with!! And experiment with different players!!
They need a better coah They never hired the best Argentina manager though. I can't help but think Simeone is the man that can get the best out of these players or at the very least have the balls to pick the best team and not the best 11. How does Aguero continue to get pick when he has proven to be awful in the Argentina jersey.
Simeone, Sampaoli, Bielsa, Pochettino are just some of the top coaches the Argentinians have produced that I can name off the top of my head. They have a wealth of managers and until recently world-class or close to world class players compared to us. But corruption is a bitch that has rotted AFA. We were very lucky to achieve what we did despite the rampant corruption in CBF but there can come a time where its just too much. Tata wasn't even getting his salary at the end for Christ's sake and there were rumors that the Argentine players were actually paying for themselves( hotel, food, etc) last summer. What sane manager would take that job? My guess is that they'll qualify and get tossed at the R16.
It's incredible how Brazil and Argentina, two very different countries (if you look at their histories and the immigration, the development of their governments, etc) are also so strikingly similar when it comes to typical Third World roubalheira, corruption, and unaccountability, and how all of this as you said exists in both CBF and AFA. I think that it goes to show how bad it's on their side that their federation is even more messed up than ours. Juca Kfouri wrote a short and succint editorial yesterday in which he stated that CBF does not deserve the national team. He mentioned that just as Brazil destroyed Uruguay 4-1 in Montevideo, CBF voted to rearrange voting power so that minuscule state federations have more voting power over gigantic and traditional clubs like Flamengo. It's sad. As for the Argentines, well, I wonder why they don't learn. They witnessed our near-implosion going into 2002, and that's when it was them who were on top of the world. But Bielsa would never go back; he was the manager on the run-up to 2002 and only the 2004 Olympic gold medal saved his legacy. Pochettino is still inexperienced. Sampaoli would've been a good choice, but I guess Sevilla's euros were too much. Simeone? That's the guy they needed; he would've cleaned house and set thing straight. I remember some of them were saying they needed him even when Maradona was in charge - they likened Simeone to Dunga, who was tearing it up for us going into 2010. You mention who would take the job. I speculate that guys like Sampaoli and Simeone, after working in professional European clubs, will have little patience for South American unprofessionalism. CBF is problematic, but CBF isn't going to delay salary payments to its employees. And Tite knew exactly what he was getting into - this was his chance; he prepared for the job, and was surprisingly ignored in 2014. What we're seeing now is what we would've seen had he taken over immediately after the last World Cup. Better late than never, I suppose.
Rumors that Messi has been suspended because of an exchange with the ref or linesman. Penalty is between 2-4 games.
I've seen the video, it's pretty obvious. Probably should have been red carded during the game. But the ref would have been nuts to red card as he'd have serious trouble leaving the stadium unharmed. I can see him getting 2 games. 3-4 probably won't happen and 1 is not out of the question given CONMEBOL's corruption.