Argentina NT

The Argentina of old would have already won a couple of WCs with Messi, they have far too many bottlers and yet 3 Cup finals in a row. All Messi
How exactly did Messi lead them to the last WC final? By defending ever so well against Netherlands?
 
How exactly did Messi lead them to the last WC final? By defending ever so well against Netherlands?
Dude you've got to stop your obsession in trying to belittle Messi. Constantly repeating your fantaisies won't make them true.

Christ take a break. You're now popping into every single thread Messi is mentioned. Let it go already.
 
With Lanzini or Di Maria in midfield, that sounds like an awful lot of midfield work for Enzo Perez. And the guy says wingbacks he's put in there aren't even full backs?
Lanzini plays CM quite regularly at West Ham (I really wish he would move, he's too good for that lot). Enzo is a hard working defensive anchor.

I believe that a 3 man midfield of Di Maria (AM), Lanzini (CM) and Perez (DM) would work.

As for the wingbacks, they are hard working wingers. Think of Valencia or Ashley Young, but capable of dribbling past players.

Amazing options in attack, but the rest of the squad seems unimpressive.
I think that Argentina's depth in centerbacks is quite impressive. Mascherano, Otamendi, Rojo, Mercado, Musacchio, Garay and Fazio. That's 7 quality centerbacks.
 
Erm... what is this @Ecstatic ?

Do it come with a translate or an explanation?
It's a list of all Messi goals for Argentina in chronological order. I guess most of the annotations bottom right can be figured out (although PT/ST makes no sense to me & they mistakenly classified yesterday's game as a friendly).
 
It's a list of all Messi goals for Argentina in chronological order. I guess most of the annotations bottom right can be figured out (although PT/ST makes no sense to me & they mistakenly classified yesterday's game as a friendly).

I took PT/ST as 1st/2nd goal of the match?
 
But all three goals yesterday are listed as 'PT'. All other meanings I came up with are incompatible with that too.

It's not 1st/2nd half, and now it doesn't look like 1st/2nd goal...it makes no sense.
Though my money is still on my guess, and yesterday's match being labeled wrongly.

Edit: it's also not 1st time against that country, as far as I can tell
 
Argentina should still go to the world cup as favorites. Their depth of talent alone merits it. Don't forget 2002. A team can struggle in qualifying and get it together for the tournament. I feel it might do Argentina good to go to the tournament with the humility of only trying to make it past the next game as it all kicks off.
They will be one of the favs
 
Why wouldn’t I be? Cristiano leads his team to qualification with 9 wins out of 9 (he missed the game vs Switzerland injured)
We are all very happy for you Cal. Keep it up!
 
they will be in that second group of favs with Portugal, Italy and Belgium. behind France, Spain and Germany, but ahead of England and Croatia who are outsiders for me. I don't really have opinion about Brazil.
 
Put Icardi or Aguero in for Lanzini and push them up front while pushing Messi back into AM with Di Maria in midfield, and that's a scarily good team.

And defensively the stuff of nightmares.

Forget shoe-horning in the best players, build the team around Messi first, then fill in the pieces. That means playing him where he's most dangerous, where's he's capable of scoring 2/3 goals, not where he's going to be putting chances on a plate for team-mates who don't finish them, we saw how that turned out throughout this qualifying campaign.

I do think they need to find a way to make Dybala-Messi work, but perhaps that means Dybala dropping deeper and playing as AM role. I think as good as he is, Messi is just a bit wasted there. He's the one person on the planet you want 20-30 yards from goal as much as possible.
 
they will be in that second group of favs with Portugal, Italy and Belgium. behind France, Spain and Germany, but ahead of England and Croatia who are outsiders for me. I don't really have opinion about Brazil.

Brazil for me have gotta be in the top 3 favourites along with Spain and Germany (France are up their too based on the talent they have at their disposal, but they've not impressed me greatly in qualifying and I don't think Deschamps is a good enough manager capable of getting the best out of these players).

They've pissed the most difficult qualifying group so both the results and the talent is there. I'm not sure how they're gonna line-up at the WC as I haven't been following them closely and they seem to have fluttered between different formations and set-ups, but something like this has got to be considered strong enough to be right up their with the favourites:

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all the crap about they might not qualifying. followed by Messi has save the world cup. bored now!
 
And defensively the stuff of nightmares.

Forget shoe-horning in the best players, build the team around Messi first, then fill in the pieces. That means playing him where he's most dangerous, where's he's capable of scoring 2/3 goals, not where he's going to be putting chances on a plate for team-mates who don't finish them, we saw how that turned out throughout this qualifying campaign.

I do think they need to find a way to make Dybala-Messi work, but perhaps that means Dybala dropping deeper and playing as AM role. I think as good as he is, Messi is just a bit wasted there. He's the one person on the planet you want 20-30 yards from goal as much as possible.
Dybala should honestly be the 10 providing ammunition for Messi and partners upfront. Messi should stop having to be a provider in chief. Even at Barca his provision skill is a bonus rather than an essential.
 
And defensively the stuff of nightmares.

Forget shoe-horning in the best players, build the team around Messi first, then fill in the pieces. That means playing him where he's most dangerous, where's he's capable of scoring 2/3 goals, not where he's going to be putting chances on a plate for team-mates who don't finish them, we saw how that turned out throughout this qualifying campaign.

I do think they need to find a way to make Dybala-Messi work, but perhaps that means Dybala dropping deeper and playing as AM role. I think as good as he is, Messi is just a bit wasted there. He's the one person on the planet you want 20-30 yards from goal as much as possible.
That's the only way, imo. It includes finding a team that's able to defend tightly without a lot of contribution from Messi. For all the stick the defense gets for yesterday's game, the team was far from the required compactness to support them. That has to be sorted out until next year.

To me it's not super-important if Messi plays like yesterday or in the way you propose. I guess both can make sense in the right setting. That said, finding a way to include Dybala would obviously be a plus.
 
Why wouldn’t I be? Cristiano leads his team to qualification with 9 wins out of 9 (he missed the game vs Switzerland injured)
Do you live purely for Cristiano Ronaldo?
 
The biggest sporting event should have the best teams (not necessarily the best players of the world). If the best players in the world, play in not good enough NT, they don't need to be there. Having teams not at their best in the WC would only mean we get to see the best players crying at the failure in the WC.
Disagree. Understand the sentiments if your country is participating in WQFs but for a neutral like me, I love worldcup for the great players and great teams and not exactly for minnows.
 
Argentina should still go to the world cup as favorites. Their depth of talent alone merits it. Don't forget 2002. A team can struggle in qualifying and get it together for the tournament. I feel it might do Argentina good to go to the tournament with the humility of only trying to make it past the next game as it all kicks off.
A team can do that but it doesn't make them favorites. There's no chance they're in the same bracket as Spain, Germany, Brazil or France. In one off games anything can happen but as things stand they're not a very good team.
 
It's a list of all Messi goals for Argentina in chronological order. I guess most of the annotations bottom right can be figured out (although PT/ST makes no sense to me & they mistakenly classified yesterday's game as a friendly).

I took PT/ST as 1st/2nd goal of the match?

But all three goals yesterday are listed as 'PT'. All other meanings I came up with are incompatible with that too.

It's not 1st/2nd half, and now it doesn't look like 1st/2nd goal...it makes no sense.
Though my money is still on my guess, and yesterday's match being labeled wrongly.

Edit: it's also not 1st time against that country, as far as I can tell

Primer Tiempo = PT = First half

Segundo Tiempo = ST = Second half
 
Disagree. Understand the sentiments if your country is participating in WQFs but for a neutral like me, I love worldcup for the great players and great teams and not exactly for minnows.
That's the point. If some team huffs and puffs for qualifiers, the team is not really strong at the moment. For nostalgia purposes, I would love Netherlands to be in the WC. But they aren't because they did not do as much as needed in the qualifiers. So even if they had qualified, they could have struggled and played almost like a minnow.
 
Primer Tiempo = PT = First half

Segundo Tiempo = ST = Second half
Yeah sure, but there are several 2nd half goals marked as 'PT' as well, like the third one from yesterday's game. That's why we pondered if there could be an additional meaning to that (guess you now cleared up there isn't). Anyway, it's not really important, overall it's a nice visualisation.
 
How exactly did Messi lead them to the last WC final? By defending ever so well against Netherlands?
Youve got problems. Your crazy obsession with CR7 has made you delusional. A broken record on repeat is what you are. Its sickening and madness.
 
Youve got problems. Your crazy obsession with CR7 has made you delusional. A broken record on repeat is what you are.
Argentina defended their way to the last WC final, Mascherano led the team to the WC final will be a better description.
 
To be fair Messi didn't jump on the line like a clown in the final acting like he's the coach. Maybe if he had he would have won the WC.


;)