Gritty Croatia leave awful Argentina praying for a miracle
ARGENTINA and Lionel Messi stand on the brink of deserved elimination, their fate out of their hands because of the feet of Willy Caballero and the frazzled mind of Jorge Sampaoli.
Far from putting the pieces in place for conquest, the manager only set up a collapse that has been a long time in the making.
Sure, Caballero’s ludicrously bad mistake — and a ludicrously good finish by Ante Rebic — secured Croatia their place in the knockout stages, but only after Sampaoli had somehow put together a team that diminished all of their best talents.
Not least those of Messi, who disappeared from view along with his team’s chances. He did nothing, and was nowhere.
The only piece of genius came from club rival Luka Modric, who sealed victory with a sensational late drive before Ivan Rakitic wrapped things up.
Modric said: “We have completed the main goal — we have reached the knockout stage, and we are very happy.
“Our victory could look easy, but it isn’t.
“We deserve this victory, the first goal was scored after the goalkeeper’s mistake and we were lucky. We played perfectly, it was the only way to beat Argentina.”
Sampaoli reflected: “Croatia were an excellent team, but after we conceded we lost our way and we were emotionally broken. We couldn’t change the course of events.
“I am very hurt by the defeat but I probably didn’t understand the match as I should have.”
Argentina now really need to hope Nigeria get a result off Iceland today but, even if that happens and Sampaoli’s side then beat the Africans, it will mean Croatia will top the group and could feasibly rest players against the Scandinavians.
Argentina can complain about the bad decision of Rebic staying on the pitch after what looked a red-card offence before his goal, but they should really be look- ARGENTINA: Caballero, Mercado, Otamendi, Tagliafico, Salvio (Pavon 56), Perez (Dybala 68), Mascherano, Acuna, Messi, Meza, Aguero (Higuain 54).
Goals: none
Subs not used: Guzman, Ansaldi, Biglia, Fazio, Banega, Di Maria, Armani, Rojo, Lo Celso.
CROATIA:
Subasic, Vrsaljko, Lovren, Vida, Strinic, Brozovic, Rebic (Kramaric 57), Modric, Rakitic, Perisic (Kovacic 82), Mandzukic (Corluka 90).
Goals: Rebic, Modric, Rakitic
Subs not used: Livakovic, L Kalinic, Jedvaj, Bradaric, Caleta-Car, Badelj, Pjaca, Pivaric. Man of the match: Luka Modric
Match rating: 6/10
Referee: Ravshan Irmatov (Uzbekistan) ing to the long series of mistakes that led to this, their first group stage defeat since 2002.
It’s also difficult to see how Sampaoli could have done a worse job. It was all that bad.
His shocked face at 1-0 said much.
His panicked subsequent decision said even more.
After so much discussion and decision about the tactical “design” of the side, he eventually “resorted” on going behind and