Wednesday, July 02, 2014

Wheel of fortune

Some great teams have been eliminated from the World Cup. Not Argentina. They are now among the world's eight best; a side where they hardly run (except DiMaria), and just wait for Messi to do something with the ball. Football is not just a wheel of fortune where you hope the ball lands on Messi! You cannot win a World Cup this way, and the Swiss were largely unlucky not to prove it.
Four years ago Argentina had a great side that played beautiful football. Maradona let himself be carried away with it, and made tactical choices that cost dearly in the quarterfinal against Germany. But they were still a great side. This Argentina, under Sabella, has not shown any greatness, and if they continue relying solely on luck and on Messi, they will fall as hard against Belgium as they did against Germany.
I miss Maradona. 

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi E
I think you are a bit hard on the Argentinian side.
The way Switzerland played yesterday made it hard to run anywhere for the Argetinians - if you are already inside the goal, then you cannot run further "south".

It will surely be interesting to see Argentina against Belgium - a team who I think will not fear Argentina (just like the Nigeria game). It could be entertaining - and since Belgium needs 200 open chances to score, Argentina may stand a chance of progressing.

But I agree with you that Argentina will not be world champions this way - in the semi-final they will run into the Netherlands who have parked the bus and who are extremely efficient in the counter-attack.
I hope Costa Rica can make the surprise of the tournament.

//jim

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