advertisement
Argentina recorded their worst start at the FIFA World Cup since the 1974 campaign after facing a heavy defeat of 0-3 to Croatia in a Group D match on Thursday. In the last 10 World Cup campaigns, Argentina have managed to record at least one win in their first two group matches. But this time, they have drawn against Iceland and lost to Croatia.
The loss against Croatia is the biggest Argentina have faced in the group stages since the 6-1 drubbing they received at the hands of Czechoslovakia in 1958.
Now, the blue and white striped shirts will have to hope for Iceland to lose or draw both their remaining group games, provided Argentina beat Nigeria in their last group game. Then they will be able to move to the round of 16.
Argentina last failed to move to the next round in the 2002 World Cup.
It’s an open secret that if Argentina have to perform as a team, then Lionel Messi has to be at his best. Unfortunately, that has not been the case in this World Cup. The 30-year-old has not scored a goal in his last five World Cup games, which is a total of 647 minutes.
Interestingly, he has recorded the most number of attempts in this World Cup so far – 12 – but zero goals. Out of the 12 shots, 11 were made against Iceland.
Interestingly, Messi was hardly in the picture when Argentina went down to Croatia. He had only 20 touches in the first half and recorded his only shot of the match in the 64th minute.
In total, Messi recorded 49 touches in the match, out of which only two were in Croatia’s box.
Argentina have conceded four goals in the tournament so far and at least two of those goals could have been avoided.
During injury time, Caballero saved a shot from Ivan Rakitic. The ball deflected off the keeper’s hands to Mateo Kovacic, who passed it back to Rakitic. When Rakitic was all set to score, there were three Croatian players against one Argentine! When the goal was completed, there were four Argentine players standing behind Rakitic, who showed no interest in stopping the goal.
Many were not happy with Argentina coach Jorge Sampaoli’s decision to leave out Mauro Icardi out of the 23-man squad even though he was the joint-top goalscorer in Serie A with 29 goals for Inter Milan.
Juventus' Paulo Dybala has started both the games from the bench, even after scoring 22 goals in Serie A.
In the 55th minute, Sampaoli took a strange decision to bring in Gonzalo Higuain instead of Sergio Aguero – the one player who has scored for Argentina in this World Cup so far.
Jorge Sampaoli decided to play a formation which would have three defenders instead of four in the match against Croatia. Argentina fielded a 3-4-2-1 formation at the start of the match. But, the three-defender formation is not preferred by Lionel Messi. He had voiced his concerns when Luis Enrique tried to implement the strategy at Barcelona.
As the match progressed, Javier Mascherano moved to defense to help the other three players, while Dybala, Cristian Pavon, Messi and Higuain stayed in the forward line. As a result, the team was split into forwards and defenders without a midfield.
(For complete FIFA World Cup 2018 coverage, click here to visit our special WC page.)
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)