By the way, let's point out that Rojo had a hockey assist on the Messi goal. Great recuperation by him to give it to Banega who chanelled Riquelme with his pass. A world class finish by Messi. Truly great goal!
Nothing like an Argentine crowd. The sheer energy...... That little kid god bless with his dad. Any excuse. That Messi goal is a piece of magic control and sublime touch. One Messi goal like that is worth more than anything Cristina has come up with so far....
Not to mention that for the first time in the tournament, Argentina will be playing a match where the opposing team actually needs a win. Nigeria *sort of* needed a win; they probably figured Iceland wouldn't beat Croatia and a tie would be enough.
He might have not seemed decisive (which is a good thing), but that one Armani save in the second half gave us life and is a big part of why we went through in the end. Who knows what would have happened with Caballero.
And what is more looks like the whole team is uniting even those players that might not have played a minute. The way they celebrated... Armani was a cool customer. Might have done better with the penalty but otherwise an air of confidence throughout. But the way Perez + Mercado & di Maria + Nicolas shut down both flanks was supreme in that first half. The work they put in no wonder they were subbed out.
Nigeria were never going to score this game. Our 4-4-2 with true 4 defenders will not be beaten. That penalty on mascherano was a crime. Cheap cheap ********en penalty destroyed our game completely. Never a penalty in a million years and happens on ever corner kick in history of corner kicks. The players wasn't even involved in a play....
My least favorite Argentina player scored the winning goal, I will take it! They showed some cojones today and deserve a lot of credit. They don't have much structure and organization but they fought hard and to the end. I have rarely seen Messi working that hard for ages either. Having said that, this may be the worst Argentina NT I have ever seen since the 80's. Mashe, Pipita among others are cooked. They have not much left in the legs. Fresh blood like Dybala or Lo Celso are riding the pine. Sampa is so over his head, it is not even funny anymore.
Like I said, Armani has stone cold look face even after Nigeria scored that penalty. Its quite surprising to be honest, I thought everyone gonna folded after that goal but they showed same mentallity as Germany in this game and this kind of mentallity is important at KO stage.
Banega has it in him to be that guy. Take out Messi, he sees the game the best of anyone who has played so far in this WC. It's so damn frustrating that he's not consistent.
It was a soft penalty but Masch was silly, he must have seen pens have been given for similar incidents and the players would have been warned. Masch had a really poor game.
It should be pointed that Messi goal from Banega great pass was crucial because it wasnt that goal, we would probably conceided a late goal instead. It could end up 0-1.
I've seen the replay multiple times and most of the time the ref would simply ignore that kind of tanggling. There are so many harder fouls being ignored and sometimes the ref would give the soft one instead.
Ehhh.. its regular in box contact. What, are you supposed to give every player a meter of space? Some friction is natural, this is just some FIFA “lets play clean and all hold hands” bs
We played a flawless first half. Nigeria with all their mighty pace were like harmless little kitties instead of leopards. That bullshit penalty ruined the second half but we did well overall. With this 4-4-2 we will not lose.
Poor game is being nice...That was a diabolical performance. At some point in the first half, he gave away the ball 3 times in less than 5 minutes. I would love to see his pass completion %.