HELD BY ICELAND and humiliated by Croatia, Argentina’s World Cup could already have been all but over, but Lionel Messi and the rest of Jorge Sampaoli’s troubled squad have one final shot at redemption against Nigeria on Tuesday.
Victory against the Africans, who Argentina have beaten in all four previous World Cup meetings, will secure qualification for the last 16 as long as Iceland don’t shock already-qualified Croatia.
Even if Iceland claim a first ever World Cup victory, Argentina could still progress on goal difference.
However, bouncing back will take a huge improvement in performance and strength of character so far unseen from the two-time world champions in Russia.
The Argentina federation were even moved on Saturday to confirm that Sampaoli would continue for the final group game among rumours of a rift between players and coach.
“I get the feeling there’s a general anger at the heart of the team,” said Argentina’s legendary 1986 World Cup-winning captain Diego Maradona.
“I’m furious and very upset inside, because anyone who wore that shirt can’t see it being trampled like that by a Croatian team that isn’t Germany, that isn’t Brazil, that isn’t Holland or Spain.”
For all his heroics with Barcelona at club level, Messi is still often compared unfavourably in his homeland for his inability to recreate Maradona’s success for the national team.
Messi led Argentina to the World Cup final four years ago and consecutive Copa America finals in the following two years, but all three ended in defeat.
And his 31st birthday on Sunday only served to highlight how time is running out for Messi to win a major international tournament.
Without the five-time World Player of the Year, though, it is highly unlikely Argentina would even have qualified.
Messi salvaged a disastrous campaign under three different managers with a hat-trick away to Ecuador in the Albiceleste’s final qualifier.
In their hour of need, Argentina need Messi’s best once more.
“Leo is fine,” insisted veteran midfielder Javier Mascherano, who knows Messi better than most having spent eight years as his club team-mate at Barcelona.
“He is a human being who has his frustrations because things haven’t worked out, but so are we all.
“Like it our not, we are the runners-up from the World Cup and we have to show it.”
So far in Russia, Messi has been held scoreless. He missed a penalty among 11 unsuccessful shots on goal in a 1-1 draw with Iceland before failing to make any meaningful impact in an error-strewn Argentine display against Croatia.
A month on from Messi’s rescue mission in Ecuador, he sat out a friendly as Nigeria beat Argentina 4-2 back in November to highlight how reliant even a squad containing Sergio Aguero, Gonzalo Higuain and Paulo Dybala remain on their number 10.
“It is the most critical situation I have experienced, along with the Ecuador game,” said Argentina midfielder Lucas Biglia on Sunday. “But sometimes you have to cling to something.”
Argentina are clinging to the hope their captain bails them out again.
“upset the natural flow of the game”. can’t agree with that. you have lads throwing themselves on the ground left, right and centre which is far more disruptive in my opinion, especially in the bigger knockout games when they’re a goal up. sure they had water breaks in some matches in the last World Cup which went by almost unnoticed. time for the video ref.
Also it should be easy enough to moderate the use of video techology. I.e limit the number of times it can be referred to in a game…. each coach can call for a video replay three times and no more!
About time but I would rather see it use for cheating and simulation
You can nearly tell by looking up that Barcaloni19 page on youtube that you would get 9/11 conspiracy clips in the suggested videos. Short memories, he seems to forget the second leg at Stamford Bridge only the year before.
All club have been stung over the years by bad decisions but when it’s costs a team a trophy/promotion or indeed regelation it can be hard to swallow .
If ever there was a club that benefited from extremely dubious refereeing, Barcelona is it.
The farce at Stamford Bridge
The Thiago Motta red card with Busquets peeking through his hands to see if he could stop rolling around yet
Van Persie’s second yellow for playing the ball after as the whistle was blown
And then from this tie, the Suarez non-red, the Iniesta non-red and the Torres sending off.
You lost all credibility when you said Torres was harshly sent off last week.
In that inter game the goal Barcelona got was actually offside so if they had video ref back then that goal wouldn’t have stood, and also the ridiculous motta red card would never have happened
They weren’t in the video so clearly didn’t happen.
3 for the manager is too many. Its been in hockey for a few years at the high level and only now is it really a very good system without issue of bias or unfair advantage. Currently, each team has one video refferral, which they keep if they are proven correct or in the case of “no decision possible”. When the team refers and they are mistaken, they lose the referral. Teams must refer immediately after the incident (within 3 seconds i think) and it has to be close to a goalscoring event (can’t be at midfield). It goes upstairs to a ref who avails of different camera replays. There are still instances when cameras don’t pick up the incident or it is unclear what happened although football games have so many cameras this might not be an issue. Also, there are still complaints to referees even after video referrals! In football there would be issues surrounding interpretation – handball/ball to hand for instance but these would simply have to be cleared up by rules committees. I think aswell that referees own referrals would be useful but in rugby these are taken too much in my opinion. The system works well, there is usually 3 or 4 refferals a game and they are swift and exciting. I think it would work. 6 a game would be hefty and would lead to a scenario whereby there would be a refferal by a winning defensive team over a free kick the last minute purely to waste time/stop momentum type of thing. This is not attractive to see.
Trust no one
Didn’t need last night to prove this. Just the last 30 years of diving, cheating, handballs etc etc etc