Argentina vs Croatia - Friendly, 12 November 2014

You have one job tata , just bulit on top of sabellas tactics..

But he is failing on that

 

Might wanna bring in Pastore and take out Banega

 

It took Sabella sometime until he got the team going, so id suggest people to calm down, it's a friendly. Relax.

 

Kun is wasting space, time to take him off

 

Tevez with his same old passing habits (usually behind players)

 

That went well

 

Team created many chances, just didn't finish them. Messi, Kun and Tevez all had chances to score. It was their second team and, even if we had scored them, what's the point? It was a team that we will never see again. Looked more like a scrimmage than a game.

 

We had good streaks before the 2006 and 2010 World Cups, which we didn't win. Your team had an amazing run-up in qualifying towards 2002, you rebuilt well for 2006, and for 2014, you ended up having solid results after Sabella took over. If you're saying winning games before the World Cup doesn't mean anything about winning the Cup, then I agree - although right now, 4 months after the last World Cup ended, NTs are all rebuilding towards the European Championship or the Copa América, and then, 2018. 4-year cycles are very long, with ups and downs, but it's definitely good to win 5 straight matches (with one of them against a huge regional rival) and not to allow any goals.

Agreed.

I so very much hope you're right.

Good win today. Should be a good one against Cristiano Ronaldo's Portugal. Austria's next for us.

 

A 2-1 loss with a B team ill take it. We actually outplayed Argentina for the first 15 minutes and scored a really nice goal as well. For Croatia youngsters like Kovacic Jedvaj and Vrsajlko played well which is always good against basically the best you can get. Argentina had some great moments of brilliance but just couldn't finish. Anyways on to Italy.

 

Kun's quality, I don't get why people are so upset over a couple bad games. Its not a big deal, just chill out.

 

This is why fans need to be patient and view these friendlies as individual episodes of a very long process.

Apparently you have forgotten that the last time Brazil played France, Brazil won 3-0. Moreover, wins in friendlies are not as important as wins in competitions, nor do they indicate superiority in actual head-to-head meetings in official competitions. Argentina owns Germany in friendly match results, but both teams met in the past 3 World Cups and Germany had the last laugh every time. Your team has defeated strong European teams in friendlies over the past many years - Italy, Spain, and Germany - but your team has not defeated a strong European team in 90 minutes in World Cup competition since 1986. Brazil defeated Italy and Spain in 2013.

As for Colombia, we beat them in our last friendly, and Colombia hasn't beaten Brazil since 1991. We own Chile (recent Copa America and World Cup qualifying) and Mexico, while a rugged team, is not a team we worry about. They will not be a challenge to us in our quest to win the World Cup again.

All of these statistics, while worth knowing and remembering, do not mean all that much when each next match happens. As I wrote and as you agree, the post-World Cup preparation is a long and arduous road with advances and setbacks.

Each manager has his own style and philosophy, and it takes time for each manager's system to show results. Managing a national team isn't the same as managing a club; with the latter, managers are with the entire roster every day and they get to know each player's strengths and weaknesses intimately. This is why oftentimes clubs have better team chemistry than national teams even if the national teams boast superior talent. The challenge is to get that talent to work as smoothly as clubs do.

 

Save for 2001 and 2011, Brazil has won the Copa America every time since 1997. It would be nice to win it again - Dunga has already won that tournament, but again, preparing a team for the World Cup is the ultimate goal. Not that the Copa America lacks prestige, but I'd rather win the World Cup over the Copa America.

We're 5 for 5, no goals allowed, since Dunga returned. So, yes, we're looking good for friendlies, but Dunga is building a nice, solid base from which to prepare a team for the next few years. The World Cup performances are not what to base Brazil's chances on in the next Copa America. The results of Dunga's current tenure are. And the last time Dunga coached Brazil in a Copa America tournament, Brazil won the tournament. Doesn't mean he'll do it again - but given we already defeated 3 CONMEBOL sides (Ecuador, Colombia, and your team) since Dunga returned, it makes perfect sense to be optimistic.

I can't speak on your team's tactics (Sabella vs. Martino), but if your guys waste chances, then it's the same as not creating them. All that matters is getting the ball in the net.

 

I really dislike Dunga, I thought it would be impossible to dislike a manager as Scolari(Which I am glad he got exposed for the fraud that he s) then I saw Dunga's face again and said, Scolari needs to take a step back. The CBF should've given the job to Tite. I hope Dunga fails and fails miserably then gets fired. The only way I see that happening is if he fails to win the Copa next year and the Olympics at home in a couple years. Maybe just the Olympics will do it as well. Now, I do hope we make the Olympics and spoil the party. No doubt, the 3 over U23 players will be, Neymar,Thiago Silva, and probably Oscar. Get ready to see another 4 years of grabbing shirts, kicking and disrupting play.

 

I actually thought Aguero played very well and maybe the best I've ever seen him play with Messi. Could be something to do with Messi being instructed to play further out wide (although as the game progressed he drifted more central). They weren't as on top of each other as usual. Kun just needs a finish to relax.

Although, I'm sure we would have been better with Higuain starting.

Messi played great. Better than he has in awhile. Credit to Tata for playing him wide.

Banega and Enzo didn't do their job today. They need to know their primary role is to provide an outlet to Masch and our Centrales. They didn't move nearly enough to do that and our defenders were usually either forced to try to pick out a long range pass to our striker or offload to Messi coming way too deep.

Often Banega would just sit in the center waiting for the ball. It wouldn't come because the passing lanes were easily blocked (despite of Croatia not intensely pressuring). instead of moving to provide the outlet, he would move up the field joining Aguero near the edge of the box. When Banega did receive the ball in midfield he was unable to pick out accurate passes to our 3 forwards. His best came when he was playing far too advanced for my liking.

Enzo was better both in providing an outlet and accurate passing to our forwards. Not to mention defensively. Still he wasn't as mobile as he should be either. Old Masch is running circles around those 2 in terms of floating.

Di Maria had the worst match. Partly it was cause we had precious few counterattacking opportunites (new system, get used to it. He'll never be as effective as he was under Sabella). But it was also cause he was all over the field positionally. Does he really need to go to the right wing when Messi is playing wide and Sabella is still running forward all the time? Nor did he provide his usual hard defensive work. I think he's getting star syndrome. Lamela was much better when he came in.

I still don't like that we have both fullbacks going forward all the time. Especially if Di Maria is going to vacate the left wing and leave Ansaldi to do all the creating and defending there.

The goal was given up because Ansaldi was far up the field, and so were all of our midfielders including Masch. The defenders slid over to cover Ansaldi's man and Zab's was left open. Banega had a half-hearted ineffective challenge in midfield. Ansaldi another when trailing. I'm sure Rojo would have scythed the attacker down (and gotten a yellow).

Not sure what to think of Ansaldi. He was terrible during the first 20 minute. Constantly out of position (but I guess everyone think you have to send both fullbacks constantly flying forward nowadays), very bad tackling. He gradually got better. Maybe it was nerves. Rojo has looked horrible for United lately though.

Our corner kicks are horrible. Only one decent corner kick was put in which happened to be one of the cutsey short ones (although all the other short corners failed miserably; do we even practice them?). Fazio might as well save his strength and stay back.

Tevez didn't work.

Thought we defended set pieces well!

Highlight of the match for me was Mascherano's shot and Ansaldi's layoff to Messi.

Would just like to give another THANKS to AFA and el publico for driving our most successful coach since Bilardo out right before COPA AMERICA.

 

Perfectly put and i still think we need alternative CMs. Tata has not found the right crop of players there and should look elsewhere because the guys he brought are either ball hogs or not so fundementally sound when it comes to positioning. I still think Cartabia should be called up