|
No one who has followed Argentina in recent times could possibly be surprised by their World Cup displays. They are a shambles, and have been heading for this destination for some time. The causes are both short and long term. The latter, the long term, has to do with the astonishing decline in their youth development work. Between 1995 and 2007 they won the Under-20 World Cup on five separate occasions. Even more important than the triumphs were the players they were continually producing for the senior side. But the well has dried up. All of Argentina's subsequent Under-20 sides have been poor -- and this, in turn, has filtered through to the seniors. They now lack a top-class goalkeeper, centre-back, full-back and central midfielder. They have quality in attacking positions, but without the solidity in other parts of the team to bring it to bear.
World Cup 2018 must-reads - Make your daily picks with ESPN FC Match Predictor 2018!
- World Cup fixtures, results and coverage
- World Cup LIVE: Follow all the action on and off the pitch each day with ESPN
- Messi helpless as Argentina's World Cup dream fade
- Mbappe announces himself on the World Cup stage
The short-term problem comes with the coach, Jorge Sampaoli, the third man to take charge of Argentina during their traumatic qualification campaign. His track record speaks for itself. He has produced some wonderfully exciting sides. But he is a coach with one idea and Argentina currently lack the resources to carry it out. Sampaoli's sides traditionally press furiously in the other half of the field, squeezing the opposition back and throwing men forward to create numerical superiority close to goal. Argentina's lack of defensive pace makes this a non-starter -- as heavy warm-up defeats to Nigeria and Spain made clear. With his team unable to play his way, Sampaoli has got himself utterly confused about what his players are supposed to be doing. His teams often line up with a back three. But he abandoned the system after his defence collapsed to a 4-2 defeat against Nigeria last November. He began to build his side around a back four with the lumbering Federico Fazio at centre-back. He lost patience with this during the preparation, and for the debut game against Iceland he went with a back four and included Marcos Rojo. For the Croatia match he reverted back to a back three -- the very system he had previously rejected. Sampaoli always gives the appearance of a little chihuahua, yapping away as he paces up and down the touchline. In desperation, he now seems to be chasing his own tail. The logic behind the back three was simple. Against Iceland, Argentina tried to thread everything through the middle so he wanted to open out the field with a pair of wing-backs, giving him high width. The back three, though, had been rejected for three reasons. Firstly, the midfield do not press, making evident the second problem; with no defensive pace, the back line retreat, opening up space for the opposition. And this impacts problem number three -- his wing backs are in reality wingers. They are now expected to run back 80 metres and defend at the end of it. All night against Croatia, Argentina were playing Russian roulette with the space left behind their right-sided wing-back. It is where Croatia did most of their damage. They were aided by a bizarre -- but sadly predictable -- error from goalkeeper Willy Caballero. Sampaoli gave the veteran his competitive debut in the match against Iceland. He could have waited for normal first-choice goalkeeper Sergio Romero to get healthy, but cut him from the squad because of a knee problem and went with Caballero -- ostensibly, and ludicrously, because of his ability off his line. Sampaoli was aware that his new system would run into problems against a midfield that passes the ball as well as Croatia's. So he brought in a battling midfielder, Enzo Perez, to play alongside Javier Mascherano. Perez was not even part of the original squad, and only made it to Russia as a replacement for the injured Manuel Lanzini. The fact that he was leapfrogged to first choice is evidence of the utter confusion in the mind of the coach -- who must now focus on yet another patched-up, improvised solution and hope that a win against Nigeria next Tuesday will be enough to keep Argentina alive in the competition.
|
