La Selección Argentina

The midfield was missing the beautiful man in my avatar badly. The inexperience together in defense was very apparent. Bolivia were all over us. But again I think the altitude was the biggest factor. We also had almost no width in attack most of the game and when we did it turned out pretty well for us, mostly in the form of a couple clemente crosses one which led to the goal. Credit to Bolivia they played well but we didn't have the same team and we lacked the ball winning by our forwards that we had against Venezuela. I think Bolivias keeper was MotM, Di Maria our best player with Iker Romero our second best player.

We didnt deserve more than a point and now we must beat Colombia in Rosario.

You should chip the ball man

I only watched the first half as I had class after that. A few thoughts:

-The 5-3-2 with a makeshift defense was a complete disaster. It looked like 5 unsynchronized bodies rather than a national team defense. It's hard to discern from this game whether the fault is with the formation or in playing 5 defenders that have not had any time to get used to each other. Still think the 5-3-2 is a bad idea for us, especially with Clemente (I realize he assisted, still don't like him). Also, I called it:

I'm sure whatever marginal gain reached by that extra body will be completely nullified by the fact that this defense has never played together before.

-I'm not entirely sure what the logic behind playing on the counter is in the altitude of Bolivia? Surely when you want to run less, not more, you need to choke possession? One worrying thing about Sabella is that he always feels more comfortable in the counter, but the players feel better being protagonists. It would suck if we got far playing with our usual 4-3-1-2 and then a tough game comes and he changes to the 5-3-2 in Joachim Low style and we lost. I usually give Sabella a lot of credit for his tactics but I think he got them wrong today.

-Messi, Di Maria and Romero, only ones that can hold their heads somewhat high after the first half. Not sure how they did in the 2nd half but I gather Messi had a very clear shot. Bolivia is South America's Chelsea to Messi?

-I'll take the point very happily. Especially considering Sabella did not play one starting defender and saved them all for Colombia.

-Palacio should have done a lot better. Time to give Scocco a call.

Yeah Clemente is crap, Palacio was crap. Entire defense was crap. Peruzzi had some decent moments. Messi was good when he got the ball mostly, dribbled well but didn't have great support. Also bottled a good chance at the death, can't score em all. Our midfield was just a joke for them, as was our pressing, we lost the two things that made us so good in the last few games. Ponzio didnt do much to help either when he came on. Di Santo came on too

Ponzio played for the NT?!
River legend

the 1v1 miss was a big miss, but other then that he didnt have to do anything. we take the draw as a win. you try playing at 3600m altitude good thing defenders were spared for colombia. messi had some great off the ball movement, tactical positioning, passing and dribbling. its OK he didnt perform at 100% against bolivia.

Di Maria, Palacio and Messi all missed a sitter, the difference was that Messi actually created his.

Messi - Palacio up front and others bunkering were a tactical decision by Sabella.

Messi was always dangerous when he actually got the ball.



Tbh that was a very good point in La Paz with 8 changes.

This halamadrid guy doesnt understand the concept of the game. Messi won 4 years the award of best player in the world, and this guy keeps saying ´Missi isnt that good´.

Bro Messi vomited at half-time and you're going to give him a hard time for not running enough? Have you ever been at 3600m above ground? It's obvious that since his last experience in La Paz he learned that needs to really pace himself.

halamadrid2 wrote:

Harmonica wrote:Di Maria, Palacio and Messi all missed a sitter, the difference was that Messi actually created his.

Messi - Palacio up front and others bunkering were a tactical decision by Sabella.

Messi was always dangerous when he actually got the ball.



Tbh that was a very good point in La Paz with 8 changes.

soo many times I saw Argentina having counters where messi wouldn't move his arse (I only watched the first half tho) DiMaria was kept holding up the ball instead of passing it to someone next to him (where messi should have been) or to somebody making a run because palacio doesn't understand the concept of that. palacio did have this great chance to put Argentina ahead tho which he fluffed (something a willing fighter created)

I can understand sabella having messi and palacio up top was tactical but I bet if I showed you messis movement in the first half they would be concentrated within a certain very small radius

Dude, when Messi and Higuain worked their ass over Venezuela, Di Maria was resting his skinny ass. Obviously he had more energy in this.

halamadrid2 wrote:@harmonica, it wasn't only Dimaria running his heart out tho the whole team was bar messi and palacio. doubt dimaria playing vs Venezuela would have made any difference anyways

Yeah, and 8 of them didn't play against Venezuela.

halamadrid2 wrote:I don't understand how you guys could call Missi good....the guy was a friggin pedestrian out there ffs and don't give me the high altitude excuse everybody bar him and palacio were running their socks off. that 1v1


where was Tevez?? Palacio is not backup material, doesn't make run doesn't make effort aka he is crap

As I said, Messi was good when he got the ball mostly. The altitude took its toll on him, as it did the rest of the team, you could tell it took alot out of the players when they ran and it was more difficult to recover than usual, except Di Maria, the dude is a fcking animal, I've never seen someone work like that, never seen him so gassed at the end of the game. He had to get stretchered off to get oxygen, then came back on and played the rest of the game out

This :

People are forgetting this was a tough match in a very tough environment. Messi didn't run much? I agree, but he saved his energy for the right times.

The main issue was how disorganised our defence was. It didn't give us a peace of mind and subsequently made everything else look bad too. At times our defence felt like watching a second division team, I hope Sabella stops experimenting now. Don't get me wrong, I love 3-5-2 but we don't have the right players to play it as it will take us a long time to get used to such formation as no team in Primera plays this way. Not the top teams anyway.

Absolutely. It's kind of annoying to see some news outlets call the defense solid though, that had me scratching my head

If anyone here will be in Arg. the 2nd of May Pep will be there and give a lecture

For anyone interested: http://www.ole.com.ar/fuera-de-juego/Guardiola-visita-Argentina_0_901710066.html

too bad he wont be going in a couple months, maybe then I'd be able to see him.

Messi possibly injured for the Colombia match. Thanks for that superb injury management, Barca

Maxi Lopez can replace Messi, best striker you got atm

Lopez-Di Santo duo

Latest list vs Colombia (home) and Ecuador (away)

Sergio Romero
Mariano Andújar

Ezequiel Garay
Marcos Rojo
Federico Fernández
Pablo Zabaleta
Hugo Campagnaro
José Basanta
Fabricio Coloccini

Javier Mascherano
Angel Di María
Eber Banega
Erik Lamela
Lucas Biglia
Pablo Guiñazú
José Sosa
Augusto Fernández
Walter Montillo

Lionel Messi
Gonzalo Higuaín
Sergio Agüero
Ezequiel Lavezzi
Rodrigo Palacio.

Lamela

Andujar, Sosa, Montillo, Marcos Rojo

Lack of Caballero, Ansaldi, and Scocco make me

Sidenote: is Gago injured? I saw him play but 2 weeks ago and his form was great. Can't imagine why he would be dropped.

Lavezzi ahead of Di Santo