I had a bad feeling about today. And indeed, today was a horrible day. It seems all teams I support always lose, and this continues. Colombia lost, but much, MUCH worse, Argentina was eliminated by Uruguay from the Copa América today.
I knew it could happen. Uruguay is one of the best teams in the world, and matches between these two giants are notably unpredictable. However, I was hoping, together with many Argentineans, that this would be the Cup where Argentina would blossom with its team of wonderful players.
But these were simply not very wonderful... First half was Argentina's, but in the second half a ten-man Uruguayan side played with the tenacity and stubbornness that their coach, the legendary Oscar Tabarez, has said characterizes Uruguayans. Argentina seemed unable to break the disciplined Uruguayan side, and if they did, Gonzalo Higuaín would miss, or the outstanding Lazio goalkeeper, Fernando Muslera, would take it.
Uruguay was obviously happy when the match ended and it went into penalty kicks. As in South Africa two years ago, when they defeated Ghana in another match that kicked out one of my favourite sides,the Uruguayans are very sure of their spectacular cool. And indeed, they were far superior and never seemed to miss a beat, winning by a narrow margin when Carlos Tevez missed for Argentina.
This is a time for reckoning for Argentina. A team of superstars that is obviously not working, least of all Lionel Messi, who is more or less mediocre when playing somewhere where they don´t speak Catalonian. There is no doubt that the much-criticised Maradona was a far superior coach to Sergio Batista, who seems to think that football is only about dressing up and calling up guys with a high salary.
This is a very, very bad Saturday.
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