FIFA World Cup 2018 - Round of 16: Argentina vs. France - June 30 [R]

Surrounding core players like Dybala, Lo Celso and Pavon with the likes of Messi and Aguero definitely will help ease them in. Throwing the keys to all the young guys before they are ready can hurt their development too. Last thing everybody wants is to see a young team crash out of the Copa in the group stages and get crucified. Even though there wont be high expectations, playing for the NT always comes with the pressure to perform and it would be disastrous if they get psychologically damaged like this generation did.

 

Agreed. A mix of a few useful veterans and young talented players should be the focus for this CA. Let the young players slowly integrate into the team. As you said, having terrible NT performances in a young player can have a bad impact to their confidence. As much as I don't like the bashing of Messi and other useful veterans (even if some are unfair), they would take away most of the attention from the young players, so the young players can perform without a lot of pressure.

Also I don't think it's too early to bring players like Martinez, Foyth and other potential young players that have no WC exp so they can get the feel of what it's like to play for the NT and get to know Sampa's "system". Our next two games are against Guatemala and Colombia in Sept. Let's not waste these friendlies please.

 

The preasure will always be there because Argentina pass achievement and all the failures in last 2 1/2 decades... but with Messi still playing , we will end up building the team around him all over again , sacrificing the team balance once again. I think I'm fine with having Kun and Messi for next Copa, they certainly needs at least 2-3 but we should be playing without Messi for a while in qualifier and see how it goes.

Midfield and defence needs regenaration badly and I wont be worried about the forward line since Argentina has always been overloaded with world class attacking players. Even if you take out Kun and Messi, there's already Martinez, Icardi, Dybala, Pavon waiting on the line. They've never been part of our plan A / starting line up so far, thus they never really play to their full potential.

 

Heinze is currently doing a good job developing young Argentine midfielders. Caseres, Vargas, Dominguez, and Robertone are all regular starters at Velez.

 

Ppl asking about CBs probably dont know how good Pezzella is. I think him, Mussachio (27), Foyth, And Conti are the top four to lead th NT. However, I don’t wanna head into 2022 with a bunch of inexperienced kids running the team so someone like Otamendi should be around and maybe even Funes Mori. Tagliafico will be a solid veteran at that point and we can have a mixture of maybe 6-7 youngsters with three or four veterans on the team.

 

I still think the team needs at least 3-4 players that are physically strong with endless stamina. Like it or not, these are huge factors especially in today's football.

The current team has been really slow & easily outmuscled and outpaced by opponents, thus we gave up a goals from penalties and counter endlessly. Other strong teams like France & Uruguay has been caught on counter many times too , but they have players in including in attacking and midfield players that can drop deep quickly and help to press and defend when needed.

Suarez isnt fast but he had enough stamina to keep pressing and help to defend in midfield when Uruguay was playing to protect their goal. The same with Cavani.

 

watched the match again, realised that arg actually was not as bad as germany this wcup, but having that we had a real chance to go further, france were so disorganized at the back, di maria was the real hero yesterday, but sampa was the real villian or messi if he was instructing sampa to make the rojo sub, though rojo could have got red, atleast the defense would have not become so diorganized like with fazio....
- messi tried hard, too much going in the dressing room which affected the him and the team
- sampa a cash cow and a fool
- not getting icardi need to blame messi, not playing dybala have to blame both sampa and messi
- Iceland match cost us and atleast a draw with croatia we would have faced belgium...
- but we had a real chance against france sterday.... we should have won and dybala could have made that difference....
- messi a great player but does arg really care if lopez wife cheated and ran away with icardi, messi made a blunder of not having icardi and that would have made the difference, messi cannot think clearly this would have won him and arg the wcup... Icardi in the iceland defense would have been the difference
- Messi is not a Maradona, that's why Maradona is still best in Arg, never a captain material....having saifd all this hope simone takes over and messi doesn't retire and let the young guns take arg to the much waited wcup....

 

If you hit 3 & still ended up losing, the problem lies at the manager. We came back from behind, equalized & went in front , yet we let up another goal which conceided in similar manner, a straight forward counter.

We have been struggling to score at KO stage in 2014, now we got 3 in one match, yet we lost... how ironic.

 

Three of the four goals scored by France were concocted on our right side, only the penalty came from a play through the middle. Mercado had a nightmare of a match despite his goal, but he was also left exposed with no one covering the right flank further up. Pavon was playing as a forward, which he clearly is not suited for, and Banega was situated in front of the double pivot by Masche and Perez.

Sampaoli should have read this deficiency which had already been shown in the first half, that’s what he is there for, but instead kept the same formation. Once they found their shooting aim, it was three goals in the space of 20 minutes. Fazio made things worse being erratic and as immobile as a stiff cock, and why did he have a black eye coming into the match?

 

Samp deserves a lot of blame but after thinking about it, the quality was simply not there aside from a select few like Messi, Di Maria(today), Tagliafico, etc. Way too many liabilities and average players on the pitch that were simply made worse by Samp's incompetence. However when your midfield and defence are completely outclassed by your opponents its going to be very hard to win. France's third goal was the killer and it should not have happened at all. Terrible mistakes by the defenders and especially Armani. That was a save he had to stop and imo it was almost on the level of Caballero's mistake

 

As I mentioned when the final squad was announced, the WC is a young men’s game. Our tesm’s aversge age is 29 y 9 m, versus 26 y 2 m for France.

Argentina won its WCs with very young tesms, captained by a 24 year old and a 25 year old, it needs to go back to what Argentine football is.

 

I'm quoting myself from before the game, not as a 'told you so' gesture, but to try to prove a point. I played amateur soccer all my life, but I'm a novice when it comes to tactics. But even a person like me can see the threat of Mbappe. How can a professional coach with a full analytical staff not have a plan to stop him run riot against us?

The other thing, when we were up 2-1, my wife says now just sit back and defend. But what did we do? On their second goal they had so much space to play the ball to their left wing, cross it, and then had a lot if time for a shot. Pathetic defending.

Messi, I have no idea what happened with him. Is it that bad of a system? Is it too much pressure? Not enough interest? No idea.

 

Another defender who hasnt been mention is Alan franco. I believe that he is going to become one of the best defenders in Argentina in few years. He´s already attracting big European clubs such as Atletico. Hopefully Simeone can buy him and mole him into a great CB.

 

But Messi is still Messi. His hattrick got us to Russia, he scored in previous game against, his deflected shot put us ahead and that ball for Aguero's goal was still classic Messi at his best.

I still maintain that player selection is our biggest weaknesess. I dont know who actually select the 23 but obviously the team has been run by the veterans for years.

Perhaps its also why the younger guys clearly doesnt have the best friendship & connection on the field with the veterans.

This lost was all down to Sampa, after Di Maria equalized, we should use that momentum to frustrate their players by playing more defensively... instead, we got another goal and then kept playing highline defence that even teams like Mexico and Korea would have kill us if presented with similar situation.

Look at how Uruguay shut Portugal's down after Cavani's goal. Sampa clearly could have done exactly the same but he stucked with the same plan till last minute.

Aguero's goal proof that even when Messi playing deep, we can still hurt their defence.

 

There is no doubt in ny mind that it was due to a bad system because he had 2 assits yesterday and if Di Maria didn’t touch that last ball and instead Fazio heads it in, everyone will be lyrical about Messi today. The thing is, Messi was running and trying to close the gap from front, he provided 2 assits and yet we lost the game. Where is the orgnization in defence and midfield? We were very open and didn’t know how to clear the ball all game.

We played 4 different formations in 4 matches in this WC and the funny thing is we would have seen a 5th if we had advanced as Mascherano, Banega and Otamendi were suspended.

To enter the WC without knowing tiur first 11 is the height of incompetency from the manager.

 

I believe we're the oldest among 32 teams.

 

We should be "happy" that we only lost 4-3 considering how bad we defended. Sampaoli is so dumb that he went 433 with false 9 against a team who has the best squad. A better defensive organised team wouldve beat France yesterday, Uruguay being one of them. We looked so shaky every time we lost the ball. Also, how shit was Enzo? he didnt defend well nor attack well. Overall a bad defensive display, except Otamendi who was a beast in the defence until he lost his mind and went full retard

 

Our defence has been all over the place this WC. We could have easily conceeded more goals against Iceland and Nigeria. We conceeded 3 against Croatia and 4 against France. That is 9 goals in 4 matches, an average of over 2 goals per match. How the heck can a team win the WC with such defence?

By the way, your username is great. What a player he was and exactly the player we have been missing in these past years. One of my all time favourite.

 

We scored 5 in last two games, so obviously the problem this time wasnt within the forwards.

We managed to get in front against Iceland, Nigeria & France, but we always leaking goal.

Its amazjng that Messi had 2 assists, Di Maria & Kun scored, yet we lost...

If this team has Sabella's defence, we would have made France attack look exactly like Belgium & Netherlands in 2014.

 

Indeed, it was almost like the defence +Mesa+Acuna+Perez were playing in lower divison while the rest were elites. Also, Samapoli was never known for having a good defensive minded team. Sevilla conceded a lot of goals when he was the coach, but the difference were that he had players who fitted his system. He had 10 players who ran constantly and pressured the opposition, and they often won by scoring more goals, and not by being compact and greedy.

I know, he was truly great. He was not the fastest, strongest but yet he made everything seem so effortless.

 

I thought I would feel a little better after a long night sleep, but I feel a lot worse. What upsets me the most is that we had a chance to go to the QF with that 2-1 lead and we gave up 3 goals in a space of 10-15 minutes. We really had to sit back after what we saw of the French from the first half but we did the exact opposite and played exactly to Mbappe's strength.

I knew Sampa had a philosophy of high pressing with a high line, but I'd hope he would be tactically flexible when comparing the squad's attribute vs the opponents' attributes. That's the hallmark of a great coach. We'll see how the team does for the CA 2019. But for now, I give Sampa a 3.5/10 for the WC.

 

Sampaoli 0/10 for me.

It is amazing that he got everything wrong every single match.

Plays a double pivot of Mascherano and Biglia against Iceland — horrendous.

Plays a suicidal 3-5-whatever against a team like Croatia, and in a panic throws all the forwards in while we are being overrun in the mid — horrendous.

Panics in the Nigeria game; we still go through.

Plays Messi as a false 9 against France, thinking we have Riquelme and Aimar supplying him ammunition. Then somehow, we are miraculously up 2-1, he doesn’t shut up shop — horrendous.

Never plays Lo Celso — horrendous.

Dybala gets 22 min in the whole WC — horrendous.

How can a manager who got not 1, not 2, not 3 — but EVERY match wrong tactically —can get even a 1/10, I don’t know.

Even Diego was better as a manager, and that says more than anything I can add further.

 

After 2-1 Sampa should have went for a deep deep defensive line. Instead we were still playing close to the midlife. Pavon needed to be substituted for a midfielder. Lo Celso should have came on and I would put one of Acuna or Biglia (that's all we have) to shadow MBappe. And then keep one sub for Kun aguero until the end.

We are the worst coached team this tournament by far. People compare Bielsa to Sampaoli. The latter might be a copycat but he lacks any of the prepation of Bielsa who used to watch hours of tape of the opponent and circle their main player. Getting 4 goals in is just criminal I don't care of you are even Morroco. If those countries with little talent can play with a compact style and defend well how come we can't? Please don't tell me quality we have defenders in top leagues.

 

You can blame the managers all you want but players are liable as well. And I am looking at players like Mascherano and Biglia. They embarrassed their country. And save me this nonsense that Masche bled for his country and gave it all, the dude sucked the entire tournament. Bad passes, slower than a snail, picked up cards. He should’ve respectfully retired 2 summers ago and it should’ve been that. But no, for whatever reason, he decided he wanted to return and he got his wish. He sat on the bench at FCB for nearly a year then went to China. But then he starts in our starting 11? The signs were already showing, it was his mistakes that put us in such a difficult spot during the qualifiers. We probably didn’t even need the miracle in Quito. I won’t even discuss Biglia because we know what a worthless bum he is.

Maybe, just maybe if certain players had just remained retired, we would’ve progressed through without much of an issue. And again, if they did retire two summers ago, we may have had just enough time to bring in some new blood. But their greed cost us a great deal.

Certain players became a deterrent to their country, plain and simple.

 

I see most of you are coming around to try idea that we should play defensive but let's not kid ourselves. As far as I remember, I was one of the only voices in the wilderness saying this since 2007 when we lost the CA to Brazil despite of having our best technical team.

Not to brag because it also took me way too long to realize as well. Point is it's easy to talk now when almost ALWAYS the fans are pushing for these insanely offensive formations.

Even now some people are saying that the lack of playing time for Dybala was one of the big mistakes. This is ridiculous. Dybala has no place on a pitch with Messi and he's obviously not why we gave up 9 goals in 4 matches! That was one of the few things Sampanico did right. Then there was 2010 and everyone was happy Diego was stuffing our formation with star forwards. Also let's not forget how everyone hated Sabella when he started saying things like that it was not ''Argentina football." Most people lionized the mythical fantastic four when in fact we rarely played them together during hard matches and it ended up being our downfall against Germany.

Fact is these tournaments favor the defensive, countertattacking team. This is why Uruguay can get good results despite not having our talent. It's not complicated and maybe that's why people don't want to accept it. They prefer an elaborate explanation. Or they prefer reserving am excuse to blame the manager regardless of what he does rather than making a firm stand. We are too arrogant to realize that we cannot play tango football and win. Brazil realized in the 90s.

It's another thing for a person to admit that they would rather play good football even if it lowers our chances. But rarely do I hear that. Rather a lot of vagueness and flipflopping.