First of all, this is a critical view on
Argentina’s soccer team.
I am not complaining that
Germany beat
Argentina.
I am only trying to answer the “how’s” and “why’s.”
Argentina should have beat
Germany, no doubt about it.
In the first half,
Argentina had the ball 67% of the time while the Germans were left with a meager 33%.
These numbers alone should show that the Arians were taken by surprise by how aggressive
Argentina was.
In the first two minutes alone
Germany had committed two fouls (one was awarded with a yellow card).
Argentina did a good job at keepings the pace that it wanted, not letting the Germans rush them with anything.
The second half though, was when the Argentines fell apart and the Germans picked up the slack.
Still, in the 49
th minute
Argentina scored, giving them-selves a false sense of security.
Only fools would consider themselves saved by a single goal.
Germany then continued to shoot at
Abbondanzieri, who did a fine job at keeping the ball out of the box.
Sadly, the Argentine goalie got hurt (it was an accidental collision, nothing done on purpose) and had to be replaced with an inexperienced (he had only played a few times for
Argentina before the world cup) and cold (he had less than a minute to warm up) goalie.
I must make a note that having to substitute a goalie is every coach’s worst nightmare due to the fact that you lose players who could be giving extra energy to the team (obviously, goalies don’t get worn down as much).
Sadly, Juan Roman Riquelme’s stamina had been depleted and had to be taken out (this too was against Perkeman’s ideal game play) and replaced with Mascherano (in my opinion, Aimar should have gone in to continue creating goal opportunities).
Soon after, Crespo was taken out (he ran a lot but hardly touched the ball) and was replaced with Julio Cruz (I have never seen him play but he is an able forward…yet…why wasn’t Messi put in?).
After the Germans scored a beautifully played header,
Argentina was weighed down with reality.
Even though
Argentina had several chances at making a goal, they went to the dreaded 30 minute over time.
What followed were two exhausted teams who were not much of a danger to each other.
Argentina clearly played better than
Germany but could not make a goal.
To my horror, the 30 minutes were up and the game was to be decided by penalties.
Sadly,
Argentina was outplayed by the penalties and lost (4-2).
So...
Contributions to Argentina’s defeat:
1) Bad refereeing (sadly, Argentina had previous problems with Lubos Michel)
2) Forced substitutions (Abbondanzieri and Riquelme were not supposed to go out)
3) Fatigue (Argentina fell apart during the second half due to the lack of running)
I know I’m not supposed to complain but, how do penalties decide which team is better? The fact is that the goalie catches kicks, are for the most part, pure luck. *sigh* To top it all off, I lost a bet to a friend.
