Is Argentina the most underperforming NT of the past 30 years?

Their next 5 games

Brazil -Away
Colombia-Home
Chile-Home
Bolivia-Away at the altitude of La Paz, they lost 4-0 there a while ago
Uruguay-Away

I would be worried if I supported Argentina. Deep down, I don't want them to miss out on the WC, but damn this is a dangerous schedule. And the qualifiers will be about to end so idk if they could recover if they lose too many points there

Art Morte wrote:

sportsczy wrote:Interestingly, Argentina made the WC final by parking the bus  or playing very defensive football for the entire tournament btw.  They played everyone very low and then hoped Messi/Di Maria/Higuain would come up with magic up front by themselves.

Given the lack of quality back in defense and midfield (not to mention GK)...  it might be the only formula that can work.

"Their defence is shit, so the only thing that might work for them is to rely heavily on their defence."

wat?

When your players are individually not that good on defense, you need to devise a tactic that emphasizes a defensive block to compensate for the individual issues.

If the defenders were very good, I'd actually look to attack more since the back 4 would be able to handle themselves without too much help.

football is all about compensating for things.  The less things you have to compensate for, the more choice you have tactically.

I wouldn't say most underperforming, but they haven't had any kind of viable tactics in a long time, and only top quality they have individually is in the attack, and 2 of those 3 are injured everytime you need them, and one chokes in every pressure situation. The best player ever has masked all these things from casual followers, everyone who actually is logically intelligent and follows Argentina knows this. Funny and sad that it's now coming through this well.

Made this last year, logically it's also measurement how much Messi has individually masked non performing team mates, zero collective tactics and mediocre coaches in Argentina shirt. It doesn't even include the last Copa.

National Team Career

Messi @28

WC14 runner-up, Golden Ball
CA07 runner-up, Top 3 (MVP shortlist)
CA15 runner-up, MVP
OL08 champion, (no individual awards, involved 9/9 goals on the field)
WC05u20 champion, Golden Ball
Involved in 42/57 team goals

Xaviestavilla

WC10 champion, Villa Bronze Ball
EU08 champion, Xavi Best Player
EU12 champion, Iniesta Best Player
OL00 runner-up, (no individual awards, Xavi involved 4/12 goals on the field)
WC03u20 runner-up, -
Involved collectively 33/52 team goals

So take this individual input (doesn't even include how much Messi beats players or how much opponents have to adjust their collective tactics to cover Messi) away from a mediocre team and what happens? This happens what you are now seeing.

I mean, what's the competition? The Dutch and English team? No offense, but over the past 30 years Argentina has been better (on paper anyways) than both for 90% of the time. We almost always go into a tournament as one of the "favorites" and never live up to it. Definitely more underperforming than those other 2.

Netherlands last World Cup was tactically sound national team, beat everybody with great collective play, Robben thrived because of it. Then they met one man, not tactically sound team, but one man, Messi. Who changed single handely everything, he changed their tactics, made them more defensive, Robben lost all support and touched like 6 times the ball first half, just because Messi was on the field. That's how Messi can do almost everything on his own, he deflates opponent tactics just being there, he's the best scorer, passer, dribbler ever, and has the best tactical understanding of the game so he can help anywhere on the field at any given time. Tournament wise this just is hard because physical limits will come play at some point, one thing that Messi cannot make, is to make Higuain score two 1on1's or tapin. He sadly hasn't got that kind of power, yet.

I could write a book of logical arguments on this subject, maybe I should.

Not the Dutch.  The Dutch, other than this past WC/Euro, have always been supremely talented... even moreso than Argentina.

Cruyff era
Van Basten era
Bergkamp/Overmars/De Boer/Cocu/Davids/Seedorf, etc. era
Robben/Sneijder/RVN/Van Persie, etc era

This was one after the other.  No Argentina team since the 70s.... and I mean even the ones that won the WC...  were as talented as any of the Dutch teams.  Not one...  until WC 2014.

no, argentina isn't the most underperforming side, at least not EVER. that title belongs to the netherlands. in this era, then yes, they definitely are, based at least on the talent they have. granted, people will say, argentina don't have as good defenders or goalies as they do strikers. however, in the finals they have been losing recently, you can say their defense has done a much better job than their offensive talent have

to be honest i don't think england belongs in the debate...thing with england is, when they had good teams the english media put them on a mantle, but, they never really had what the dutch had to look at them as a side that could take the world cup. for all the hype surrounding england back in the day, even in the becks owen period, there where also many doubters and many people who thought the football they played was crap, so i can't say they under-performed

england would be like spain prior to spain's success...you knew they were good and could go far, but unless you were from those countries, you knew they'd be halted when they faced real match-ups, and could even fall victim to upsets

Alright, I agree, not ever. I have amended the title to narrow it down to 30 years.

Harmonica wrote:Netherlands last World Cup was tactically sound national team, beat everybody with great collective play, Robben thrived because of it. Then they met one man, not tactically sound team, but one man,

at first i was like, "didn't they win that game on penalties? what's with the one man thing"? then i start seeing the he made them change their tactic spiel.....lol now we have a new item on the list "deflating opponent's tactics", that goes alongside "assists responsible for", and "shots that hit the crossbar".....btw you can say that about any good player on a team. teams will in many cases alter the way they play to counter that...doesn't mean the player had a great game.

i wonder how much water the "deflating opponents tactics" would hold had they lost the shootout lol.

titosantill wrote:

Harmonica wrote:Netherlands last World Cup was tactically sound national team, beat everybody with great collective play, Robben thrived because of it. Then they met one man, not tactically sound team, but one man,

at first i was like, "didn't they win that game on penalties? what's with the one man thing"? then i start seeing the he made them change their tactic spiel.....lol now we have a new item on the list "deflating opponent's tactics", that goes alongside "assists responsible for", and "shots that hit the crossbar".....btw you can say that about any good player on a team. teams will in many cases alter the way they play to counter that...doesn't mean the player had a great game.

i wonder how much water the "deflating opponents tactics" would hold had they lost the shootout lol.

"everyone who actually is logically intelligent and follows Argentina knows this."

You're neither of those.

BarrileteCosmico wrote:Alright, I agree, not ever. I have amended the title to narrow it down to 30 years.

last 30 years, i'd still say dutch...yes, they've been in the conversation getting to semi-finals and finals. i don't fault them for losses to spain, brazil (94/98) because they were largely underdogs in those, and in those two brazil games played well. but their tendency to implode with all the talent they had over the years, and quarrel with each other, as well as choke on penalties especially against italy in 00, in a game that italy attempted to gift wrap to them numerous times. they still take the cake

not to mention not making the 02 world cup and rijkaard gullit and van basted only having 1 euro title to their names. they should have at the very least had 2, and if not, get a world cup. netherlands still takes the cake in the last 30 years. they've had a much longer wrap sheet of chokes than this argentine side

Harmonica wrote:

titosantill wrote:

Harmonica wrote:Netherlands last World Cup was tactically sound national team, beat everybody with great collective play, Robben thrived because of it. Then they met one man, not tactically sound team, but one man,

at first i was like, "didn't they win that game on penalties? what's with the one man thing"? then i start seeing the he made them change their tactic spiel.....lol now we have a new item on the list "deflating opponent's tactics", that goes alongside "assists responsible for", and "shots that hit the crossbar".....btw you can say that about any good player on a team. teams will in many cases alter the way they play to counter that...doesn't mean the player had a great game.

i wonder how much water the "deflating opponents tactics" would hold had they lost the shootout lol.

"everyone who actually is logically intelligent and follows Argentina knows this."

You're neither of those.

if logically intelligent relates to things like "assists to the assistant of a goal", "shots that hit crossbars", "assists that would have happened, cos a player's shot was saved", "deflating opponent's tactics" (which i do agree, does happen. but doesn't change the fact that said marked player had a bad game)....then you're right, i'm not "logically intelligent"

Harmonica wrote:Netherlands last World Cup was tactically sound national team, beat everybody with great collective play, Robben thrived because of it. Then they met one man, not tactically sound team, but one man, Messi. Who changed single handely everything, he changed their tactics, made them more defensive, Robben lost all support and touched like 6 times the ball first half, just because Messi was on the field. That's how Messi can do almost everything on his own, he deflates opponent tactics just being there, he's the best scorer, passer, dribbler ever, and has the best tactical understanding of the game so he can help anywhere on the field at any given time. Tournament wise this just is hard because physical limits will come play at some point, one thing that Messi cannot make, is to make Higuain score two 1on1's or tapin. He sadly hasn't got that kind of power, yet.

I could write a book of logical arguments on this subject, maybe I should.

Can't believe i actually liked a Harmonica post

Will never forget how shit Messi was against the Netherlands in extra time lmao

Hapless_Hans wrote:Will never forget how shit Messi was against the Netherlands in extra time lmao

titosantill wrote:

Harmonica wrote:

titosantill wrote:


at first i was like, "didn't they win that game on penalties? what's with the one man thing"? then i start seeing the he made them change their tactic spiel.....lol now we have a new item on the list "deflating opponent's tactics", that goes alongside "assists responsible for", and "shots that hit the crossbar".....btw you can say that about any good player on a team. teams will in many cases alter the way they play to counter that...doesn't mean the player had a great game.

i wonder how much water the "deflating opponents tactics" would hold had they lost the shootout lol.

"everyone who actually is logically intelligent and follows Argentina knows this."

You're neither of those.

if logically intelligent relates to things like "assists to the assistant of a goal", "shots that hit crossbars", "assists that would have happened, cos a player's shot was saved", "deflating opponent's tactics" (which i do agree, does happen. but doesn't change the fact that said marked player had a bad game)....then you're right, i'm not "logically intelligent"

but above actions are better than what zidane did in the 1997 & 1998 cl final which were worst, almost did nothing significant or in other famous sentence, flopped badly

huh? what's my business with zidane and what he did or didn't do? that's quite random.....not sure how the conversation switched to that. that's like bringing up what david beckham or deco did or did not do...i don't follow the train of thought

titosantill wrote:huh? what's my business with zidane and what he did or didn't do? that's quite random.....not sure how the conversation switched to that. that's like bringing up what david beckham or deco did or did not do...i don't follow the train of thought

i give a example of how you should judge a player's performance

zidane wasn't my best player. i dunno, i'm guessing that's why you've brought his name up right ? you could say it was more than ruud gullit (one of my favorite players, not sure about him being my best player though) did against germany or something of that nature, i dunno....still doesn't negate the ridiculousness of a bunch of those stats

titosantill wrote:zidane wasn't my best player. i dunno, i'm guessing that's why you've brought his name up right ? you could say it was more than ruud gullit (one of my favorite players, not sure about him being my best player though) did against germany or something of that nature, i dunno....still doesn't negate the ridiculousness of a bunch of those stats

i thought every real fans have zidane as his idol

Harmonica wrote:

Hapless_Hans wrote:Will never forget how shit Messi was against the Netherlands in extra time lmao

So just to be clear the Dutch team pushed him to the outside and forced a low percentage lob/volley, that wasn't successful, and this is evidence of him having played well?

If not for Mascherano the Dutch likely would have won that game. He put in one of the performances of the tournament defensively. He put his ass on the line for that game.



Match saving tackle that. Clear goal otherwise.

@titto you can't blame the netherlands for their lose to brazil in the 98 world cup. First, Ronaldo had probably one of the most memorable world cup performances of all time on the night. I mean how could they cope with a prime ronaldo that actually wanted to give a damn, even a little? Lol

2. They still lost on penalties in that game. Not their fault taffarel decided to be on god mode for whaever reason that night. And yes, de'boar & overmars are pk scrubs I agree

Curtinho wrote:

Harmonica wrote:

Hapless_Hans wrote:Will never forget how shit Messi was against the Netherlands in extra time lmao

So just to be clear the Dutch team pushed him to the outside and forced a low percentage lob/volley, that wasn't successful, and this is evidence of him having played well?

If not for Mascherano the Dutch likely would have won that game. He put in one of the performances of the tournament defensively. He put his ass on the line for that game.



Match saving tackle that. Clear goal otherwise.

Without Messi Mascherano is another average player for Argentina which is shown when he has played without Messi in WCQ18, Argentina has been pants defensively. You're just another one of those casual lunatics who comment something they don't follow, or have slightest of logical understanding.

Netherlands and Robben went from dominating free flowing football to defensive and Robben having 6 whole touches in the first half. Not because Argentina was good defensively, but because Netherlands had to stop Messi collectively. And that's how Robben lost all support. And even then Messi showed the difference of relative quality, beating more players in a single match than anyone else in the whole tournament.

Jose Mourinho - "Each time I would spend hours and hours thinking of the best way to stop him (Messi) collectively, because it is impossible to man mark him."



Shots/Goals: Messi 1/0 - Robben 2/0
Chances created: Messi 2 - Robben 0
Dribbles: Messi 10 - Robben 4
Dispossessed+Turnover: Messi 4 - Robben 7
Tackles+Interceptions: Messi 3 - Robben 0

That's the difference of playing individually good and individually not so good in defensive game.

They've been getting results, making it to three finals in a row is a sign that you must be doing something right. It's just Argentina lacks clutch.