What pushed Argentina to brink of elimination?
Millions of hearts were broken by the 0-3 defeat of World Cup favourites Argentina in the game facing Croatia at Nizhny Novgorod Stadium on Thursday in Russia.
With just one point from two group games, Jorge Sampaoli’s team is now on the brink of elimination. What’s done is done. But looking back to just a few weeks before the tournament, we may find that the seeds of the tragedy have already been sown.
High hopes were pinned on Mauro Icardi, 25, to help Argentina when he brought back Serie A side Inter Milan into the Champions League after six seasons, but his fantastic attacking ability was denied by Sampaoli.
Icardi was included in Sampaoli’s preliminary list of 35 players announced on May 14. The Inter captain and the league’s best striker scored 29 goals in the Serie A.
However, Sampaoli’s final choice of not bringing Icardi to Russia was based on “players that can do many functions to give us different characteristics,” said the coach in a press conference before the tournament kicked off.
Facing the stronger and taller defenders from Iceland and Croatia, neither Lionel Messi nor Sergio Aguero could create a good chance by themselves.
The Argentine wingers have tried their best to keep crossing over, but the worldclass strikers failed to bring down the rivals’ defence.
With Icardi on the field, the situation might be very different. “Inside the penalty area, Icardi has no equal on a global scale. When a cross arrives, he is deadly. If you want to build moves with central passing, then Gonzalo Higuain or Sergio Aguero are more suited, but if you do like Inter with tons of crosses flung into the box, where are you going to get anyone better than Icardi?” Argentine legend Jorge Crespo said.
Sampaoli’s four attackers formation turned out to be incompatible with Argentina’s original system. Without Icardi, the team couldn’t realise Sampaoli’s intention to make effective attacks.
To make things worse, the team couldn’t defend their goal with the absence of another key player.
Sergio Romero injured his knee last month in the run-up to the tournament. The No.1 Argentine goalkeeper said he could recover before the World Cup, but the team went without him.
High hopes were pinned on Mauro Icardi, 25, to help Argentina when he brought back Serie A side Inter Milan into the Champions League after six seasons, but his fantastic attacking ability was denied by Sampaoli.