Copa America 2015: Argentina vs Chile Final

They didnt fight enough, its hard to believe that's all they could give. These players aint coming to this tournament after injury plague season. They dont even look tired one bit against Paraguay. Something must be up on their mind when they're playing a final. Its kinda like Germany everytime they face Italy.

Messi obviously has confidence issue when playing for Argentina. Everytime he could run straight in counter situation, he will pass the ball casually to someone else. When Tevez and Pastore set him up for a shot inside the box (against Uruguay and Paraguay), he didnt shoot it hard right away. All his direct freekick attempts , its like watching Heskey and Torres trying to get a hattrick.

Other than Cholo, its hard to think who can fix the players mentallity. Can you imagine Simeone's team playing like we did in this final? never press and looking old and tired after HT?

 

Diego Simeone has too much to offer on club level to go Int'l at this point.

 

Also what about the time when Neuer smashed in to Higuain and the free kick was rewarded against Higuain? Higuain should have had a penalty for that and possibly at least a yellow for Neuer.

 

Messi and 10 more don't deliver in the finals. Just try to be greatful we are atleast making them now. People forget how Argentina struggled to qualify for the 2010 world cup and how poorly we played at the copa america in Argentina. Atleast Messi scored his penality you can't say the same for the others. If Higuian didn't miss that tap in everyone would be singing a different story, but hey that's fubol. The problem goes way beyond just one player not delivering. It comes down to tactics and seizing oppertunities.

Brazil lost to Germany 1-7. Germany scored 7 goals against Brazil who not to long ago had one of the best defences in the world, yet it took Germany 118minute to score on Argentina in the final. Barcelona is a better team then Argentina. Club team play and practice with eachother around 9months. You can go through a bad period with the club and still win championships. The National teams spend a month together. Plus Barcelona is qualitiy team that actually has a playing style.


You can't compare the two.

 

We struggled b/c of our "coach" that year. . .

Knock-off tournaments are more skewed towards the tactics implemented by the coach, rather than talent alone. There was a great article that I read which compared the great talent produce by Brazil in the pass against teams like Germany who rely on "team work."- basically, teams that are set-up to win via tactic beat out teams that rely on talent.

Our NT has relied more on star power than great tacticians, that is a failure. I thought Sabella did a great job with his tactics of playing compact and don't get caught on traps (counter-attacks).

If you look at how lesser talented NT win tournaments, its with tactics not talent; stay compact, park the bus, and try to get lucky with quick counter-attacks. Its not the prettiest of football, but can you blame lesser NTs for doing that against us?

Since we have plenty of talent, whomever our coach will be, he will have to be someone who will have a Plan B during a game when we are face against a team that is playing compact (or parking the bus). In the chile final, it was obvious that the their team was coach to do one thing; stop Messi. Why couldn't our Plan B have been to use Messi as a decoy or sub him-out? Is Messi infallible?

 

2004 Copa América final - Bielsa
2005 Confederations final - Pékerman
2007 Copa América final - Basile
2014 World Cup final - Sabella
2015 Copa América final - Martino

At some point the blame has to shift from managers to the directors atop AFA. What I can see as an outsider is that there's no plan regarding who conducts national teams in Argentina. There's no coherence in the appointments to managing the teams, as the coaching styles between all these people are vastly different one from the other. And don't get me started on Grondona in u17 and u20.

tl;dr Changing the coach alone won't solve anything for you guys.

 

I think if we had Sabella for Copa, we would have won. He's better tactically and he would have likely got more out of the attackers without sacrificing the terrific defensive system he had setup. It was a shame that he resigned/retired.

 

Sabella problem in WC was the frontlines , they came into the tournaments barely fit, Messi, Kun and Aguero all injured that season and then Di Maria got injured in quarterfinal. Kun was injured again in the middle of the WC itself. If those players played at same level as they did throughout qualifier, we would have beat Germany 3-1. Hell, we still should have beat them at least 2-0 at normal time but off course its not Argentina if their star players aint choking in a final.

The fact that Tata pretty much using the same material as Sabella proof that it should have been Sabella himself that lead us in this Copa not a guy who just proof himself incapable of breaking park the bus team. Tata failed to beat Atletico madrid 6 times in one season despite having Messi and Neymar upfront.

 

Believe it or not, in last 2 copa, we statistically had zero loss. However, we drew 6 times! winning just 4. Its sad because Masche has done everything he could and our defence in last 3 major tournaments has been solid largely because of his leadership. Yet the frontlines could barely score a single goal in 120 minutes. Messi, Higuain and Aguero scored almost 120 goals combined for their club!

Still, the ref thing dont mean jackshit had Messi, Higuain and Palacio took their chances.

3 one vs one chances in World cup final should be more than enough. Its world cup final against Germany, you dont expect a team to have 10 clear chances.

 

Well, since I cant put avatar of Pipita smashing a final winner?

Because it doesnt exist. Hard to forgive him after that 2014 miss but he did it again and it was even more comical than last year.

 

Yeah I agree with what you're saying. Sabella didn't have a healthy front-line. But he could have picked Tevez. He would have been much better than Higuain. I wish he had let that personal agenda aside for the sake of the most coveted trophy in football. Higuain missing that golden 1-on-1 vs. Neuer will forever be etched in my mind.

Spot on. All Luis Enrique had in addition was Luis Suarez and I don't believe he was the only reason behind Barcelona winning nothing vs. winning everything. Despite their differences, Enrique still managed to get the best out of Leo and co. something Tata barely had a clue about.

Maybe Tata just doesn't know how to handle big egos.

 

That's a good point....and why we are no. 1 in the Fifa rankings as we speak. Offence wins you games, defence wins you championships....unless you are Argentina.

 

What's up with the AFA anyways? Who's going to be president or when is that going to be decided? I hope the next president gets rid of everything to do with Grandona. I feel like that family is a mufa karma ha-ha.

 

Well, its not the same. If any, it should serve as wake up call for this team. A player with weak mentallity shouldnt play for Albiceleste. Pipita was sold by RM for a reason, they won CL after that. My avatar is obviously a jab to Pipita and no one else. When someone mention that 7-1 lost, that's a team result (Brazil) not one player failure.

 

Grondona is still the manager for the youth I believe? and if you watch their performance , he clearly brought the team to New Zealand for vacation.

 

Exactly. And what I don't understand is why he was selected for 2 tournaments straight when his career was on a downward spiral? Picking Mauro Icardi would have made a lot more sense.

 

Well, what's the difference with everyone post then? its not like bitching about Tata or Grondona will change anything in reality either?

Not the entire team. The defence wasnt exactly a failure. I already mentioned we conceided just 2 in 2011, 4 in 2014 and 3 in this tournament. A forward needs to do what they're suppose to do, scores. You cant keep failing like that in tournament final.

 

You say my av wont change anything in reality since its only an online forum, then what about every post everyone make on this board? does their opinion change the reality?

 

Funny people treating Higuain as if he had tried to missed on purpose and was just scoring own goals on purpose. The guy scored the most important goal in the history of the seleccion in the last 25 years, end of story. Like it or not. Like locoxriver, I knew he would miss his penalty, perhaps he shouldn't come in, perhaps is cycle in the national team has been completed, but people completely taking the guy out to the woodshed. Just saying memoria gente!