La Selección Argentina

gago is xavi on steroids ffs

Biglia had his best game by far for us, maybe his move to Lazio has helped him.

zabaleta is overrated, his defending one on one is awful, he is always pushed up in attack so his wing gets exposed, he is slow and easy to out pace. our defense is still pretty vulnerable, we don't put enough players behind the ball and too many in attack, we press hard to make up for it but against better teams we will be exposed.

Romero had a bad mistake, I dont know if it was the really long grass on the field but he misjudged the bounce completely. Willy needs to at least be there as back up. I don't care if Andujar and Ustari are Messi's best friends ffs, we actually have a plethora of in form goalkeepers at the moment Barovero, Saja, Guzman etc.

also Carrizo is great at stopping penalties, Sabella should take a look at him.

Palacio & Lavezzi

 

Albi, Carrizo, really? Did you already forget about the 6-1?

In any case I'm very happy with Sabella. Messi did not have a great night, he was not very involved, some have speculated that he was told to let go of the ball in one touch so as to avoid getting tackled and re-surfacing his injury.

Aguero MOTM for me, earned the first penalty, scored a great goal and was overall the liveliest player of a very efficient forward line.

Romero had a one time mistake. I still trust him but think that Willy should be called up. I agree with Albi in that we are spoilt for choice as far as GKs are concerned right now. Considering the defense was completely make-shift it played well. In both goals you could fault at individual errors.

The midfield was very solid and Biglia played better than Masche usually does for the NT.

Excited to be already qualified. I remember how 4 years ago at this point we were all talking about the possibility of not making the WC and depended on miracles by Palermo to get through.

BarrileteCosmico wrote:Albi, Carrizo, really? Did you already forget about the 6-1?

I've tried to

I wouldn't want him as a starter but in case something happens to our goalkeeper like what happened to pato abbondonzieri in 06 he can come in for the shootout.

I'm reading the comments on one of Ole's articles and it seems that there is a significant voice asking for Tevez to come back (). It's probably not going to happen, since Tevez would have to be on the bench lol (and we know how much he would hate that).

stay far away from there shini, spending too much time in there can significantly lower your IQ.    source: many boludos in there

however its understandable they want other forwards considering how crap palacio and lavezzi have been

on a lighter note, we are now number 2 in the fifa rankings

Albiceleste wrote:on a lighter note, we are now number 2 in the fifa rankings

USA are that high now ?!

congrats on the qualification.I hope you guys have a horrible time over here

S wrote:

Albiceleste wrote:on a lighter note, we are now number 2 in the fifa rankings

USA are that high now ?!

3/10

Full squad for the last two WCQ-games:

Goalkeepers:
Mariano Andujar (Catania), Sergio Romero (Monaco)

Defenders:
Cristian Ansaldi (Zenit St Petersburg), Jose Basanta (Monterrey), Hugo Campagnaro (Inter), Fabricio Coloccini (Newcastle), Federico Fernandez (Napoli), Ezequiel Garay (Benfica), Marcos Rojo (Sporting), Pablo Zabaleta (Manchester City)

Midfielders:
Ricky Alvarez (Inter), Ever Banega (Valencia), Lucas Biglia (Lazio), Angel Di Maria (Real Madrid), Augusto Fernandez (Celta), Erik Lamela (Tottenham), Javier Mascherano (Barcelona), Jose Sosa (Metalist)

Attackers:
Sergio Aguero (Manchester City), Gonzalo Higuain (Napoli), Ezequiel Lavezzi (Paris Saint-Germain), Lionel Messi (Barcelona), Rodrigo Palacio (Inter)

Pretty expected tbh, I feel like there's not even a need to release a list anymore since we know who's going to be called up.

Honestly, the only thing I'm iffy about is Sosa being called up, but he'll probably not play anyway.

Roncaglia, the ex-Estudiantes CB from Fiorentina, has been called up according to the club's official twitter. Full final list of called up players to be announced tonight.

Personally think if he was going to call up a new CB he should've gone for Musacchio, but then again, he's not ex-Estudiantes.

How is Roncaglia ex-Estudiantes when he's spent the majority of his career at Boca (including youth team)? BC get your facts right brah

Maxi Lopez thrown to the wolves again

smh

Danyjr because he was at Estudiantes when Sabella was there.

Called up players from local football:

Orion
Dominguez
Rodriguez
Brana
Somoza
Mercado

In an unexpected twist, it is revealed that Mercado played for Estudiantes under Sabella! Who would have guessed!

Why the *bleep* does he invite these old players  

Some of the best football I've seen Argentina play recently. Hopefully we'll keep it up in the second half.

This is without Messi, Higuain, Gagiesta and Mascherano. Hopefully we'll get more games with our full squad in the future to make them gel for the WC.

But today was a pretty good display. I mean think about it. We went behind with essentially half our squad being bench players and equalized less than 2-3 minutes later. Without Messi. Our defence was a bit suspect many times, but our attack is lethal, and our midfield today wasn't too bad either.

Great movements couple with quick, accurate passing in the final third. This was a fantastic display.

Banega had a GOAT match.

To be completely fair though, Perú were awful. They allowed us to find long passes through the middle and there was no one to cover their back four.

So I'm reading that our defense got raped by Peru at home? I know Ansaldi is injured, but having already classified it's time to give his defense a shot. Unfortunately Sabella's weakest point is his complaisance and reluctance to tweak a working system. Fernandez and Romero are subs in their team, we need players that play every Sunday, Rojo is a scrub.

Willy
Zabaleta - Garay - Coloccini - Ansaldi

BC i don't think Coloccini and Garay will be a good partnership tbh.

Reckon Campagnaro with one of them would be better, that aside i agree.

Why do you think they would be incompatible Mole? I kinda see them as a poor man's Pique & Puyol (although one could argue Garay is currently superior to Pique), with one the technical CB that can drive the ball forward and the other the more solid, old-school type CB. Although Coloccini's injuries worry me. I'd be fine with Campagnaro as a CB as well, but I think Sabella sees him more as a FB.

In any case, what I don't want to see is 2 players starting for Argentina when they don't even start for their clubs. Romero was solid, but ever since becoming a sub at 2 separate clubs he has lost his confidence and it has really shown in the past 2 games. Argentina has a number of keepers in good form within the Argentine league and a good one in Europe in Willy. I would be more than happy to see Willy, Saja, Orion or Barovero be tested between the posts. Rojo plays as a CB for his club and is not a LB. I recognize there are no great LBs for Argentina, but again I would at least like to see him test other options that are not Basanta. Ansaldi is my choice, but even Campagnaro is preferable.

We haven't talked about the Uruguay match here yet, I'm assuming because it was a team with only 3 or 4 usual starters. What did everyone think? The defense is getting slaughtered in the Argentine press but I think it's a bit of an overreaction. Defending is a group function and it's no surprise that without our usual starters we did not show our usual organization. Bad defenders should be protected with discipline and I don't think we showed that much of it.

Maradona: played fewest amount of games, most amount of losses

Coloccini may look like Puyol but trust me he plays more like Pique

And yes his injuries and age is making him more weak he really needs to be playing alongside a more athletic and aggressive partner.

I'd say the same with Garay tbh, both are quite slow but positionally excellent with class on the ball they really need supplemented with someone who can cover the ground quickly and dominant aerially. ( although Garay doesn't suffer in the air as much as Coloccini does)