Impressions of Argentina

3 points, a good thing – but I wasn’t that impressed – of course there should’ve been more goals and then I’d probably be blind to the faults, but here’re the failings as I see ‘em

offensively the team runs largely through Veron, who generally looked great – his delivery of the ball to Heinz from the corner, for the goal, shows his precision remains as perfect as ever. But he’s old, his legs get tired and once he came off, the offense looked de-centered. Imagine if he was spelled by Requelme, or more likely vis-a-versa… Of course, he’s long-gone…

Maradona, I think, started Higuin over Milito because he wants three prime options (Messi, Tevez, Higuin) who run at the defense wreaking havoc, creating all sorts of openings – Milito is more of a classic striker, brilliant with his back to the goal and hitting on the counterattack – in this case I think Maradona emphasizing an offense in his own image is a detriment as Milito, right now, is substantially better than Higuin, especially at finishing.

the defense looked incredibly vulnerable in the last 20 minutes – here again, imagine having Cambiosso available to spell Macherano or compliment him late in the match – but the real vulnerability here simply comes from a back-line that’s worldclass, but its older and after 70 minutes unable to keep up with young fast players (this will especially be a problem if Samuel and DiMichelis play a series of matches in succession – you have to hope they win the second game so they can get some rest in the third first round match).

Macherano and Heinz on the field at the same time means you have two combustable, provacatuer – once the team is past the first round, the whole tournament could turn in a moment if one of these guys gets a red-card – playing them both suggests that Maradona is instilling in his team a sense of combat and, again, a red card against anyone of the top teams will prove fatal.

lastly, no one has a super-powerful shot from distance – Arjen Robben, Christiano Ronaldo, Gerrard and Lampard for England – this allows defenses to pack it in against Argentina, which (as Italians know) leaves even more space behind you for a counter-attack and Nigeria almost exploited this successfully (South Africa did yesterday)

lastly, the starting line-up has three players in the world’s top 20: Messi, Tevez, and Samuel – Milito’s in that group right now and he’s on the bench – Riquelme was in the group a few years ago (not sure if he’s quite there right now but he would still start ahead of Veron) – three such players is certainly enough to win a World Cup, but that’s if the team has great cohesion and I don’t think that’s the case with Argentina right now and I don’t see this group acheiving that, but you never know as Diego definitely has a pact with Satan (if he’s not actually Satan himself – as he’s certainly a fallen angel, God Bless his soul).

Brazil or Spain should be favored over them