Argentina NT

Laughable to call Messi a choker. That's someone who waits for the game to come to them or hides/shirks responsiblity. Messi leaves everything out on the pitch for Argentina. He takes responsibility everytime. He's always demanding the ball and trying to make things happen.

He misses chances for Barcelona and has the odd sloppy moment for them too like every footballer. The difference with Argentina is that

A) he's often supposed to be their creator, scorer, initiator of attacks from deep, everything. It's actually pretty sad. If Argentina had one reliable goalscorer the difference would be immense. Or a midfield for that matter.

B) as a result of A) he's often left feeling the need to do too much himself. Which naturally leads to misplaced passes or over driving you normally don't see.

C) Like I said, like every footballer he misses chances with Argentina. The difference when he does it for them it counts as a 'failure' because the chances he creates for his team mates definitely won't be taken.
 
amolbhatia50k said:
Laughable to call Messi a choker. That's someone who waits for the game to come to them or hides/shirks responsiblity. Messi leaves everything out on the pitch for Argentina. He takes responsibility everytime. He's always demanding the ball and trying to make things happen.

He misses chances for Barcelona and has the odd sloppy moment for them too like every footballer. The difference with Argentina is that

A) he's often supposed to be their creator, scorer, initiator of attacks from deep, everything. It's actually pretty sad. If Argentina had one reliable goalscorer the difference would be immense. Or a midfield for that matter.

B) as a result of A) he's often left feeling the need to do too much himself. Which naturally leads to misplaced passes or over driving you normally don't see.

C) Like I said, like every footballer he misses chances with Argentina. The difference when he does it for them it counts as a 'failure' because the chances he creates for his team mates definitely won't be taken.
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Surprising part is they have Icardi, Higuain, Augero who are all superb goal scorers for their clubs. For Argentina it''s just Messi show which is a shame. It's about time few others step up and take some responsibility.
 
amolbhatia50k said:
Laughable to call Messi a choker. That's someone who waits for the game to come to them or hides/shirks responsiblity. Messi leaves everything out on the pitch for Argentina. He takes responsibility everytime. He's always demanding the ball and trying to make things happen.

He misses chances for Barcelona and has the odd sloppy moment for them too like every footballer. The difference with Argentina is that

A) he's often supposed to be their creator, scorer, initiator of attacks from deep, everything. It's actually pretty sad. If Argentina had one reliable goalscorer the difference would be immense. Or a midfield for that matter.

B) as a result of A) he's often left feeling the need to do too much himself. Which naturally leads to misplaced passes or over driving you normally don't see.

C) Like I said, like every footballer he misses chances with Argentina. The difference when he does it for them it counts as a 'failure' because the chances he creates for his team mates definitely won't be taken.
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Exactly. Just laughable how so many here are blaming messi. It would seem like a bias from my side because I am a barca fan, but really, argentina is a joke of a team and the only thing that has pulled them together for so long is messi.
 
roonster09 said:
Surprising part is they have Icardi, Higuain, Augero who are all superb goal scorers for their clubs. For Argentina it''s just Messi show which is a shame. It's about time few others step up and take some responsibility.
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You forget Dybala as well.
It's like Argentina is cursed. When you play for them you become shit.
 
Hullyback said:
Or are you shit and it gets overlooked due to better club teammates making you look remarkable? We shall never know.
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Higuain and Aguero scored loads for goals for more than 1 club. Dybala was good playing with average teammates to with Palermo.

Icardi plays for Inter who had shit team.
 
roonster09 said:
Higuain and Aguero scored loads for goals for more than 1 club. Dybala was good playing with average teammates to with Palermo.

Icardi plays for Inter who had shit team.
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I'm thinking more along the lines of the demi-God himself rather than his minions.
 
Santi_Mesut_Alexis_87 said:
They can't absolutely miss the WC. It would be an immense shock for them. Can see them going into a downward spiral, then.
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They can and should. Going to the world cup without a long term plan to solve their problems simply just papers over their cracks. This team needs to built from scratch. And Messi's role needs to change from center of the team to match winner. He should be given a role to do nothing but score. Whilst the rest of the team should be built to provide a unit the provides a platform of chances for him. The nonsense of him trying to emulate Gerrard of Liverpool needs to end for it clearly doesn't work.
 
viscaelbarca said:
They would have gone to the finals without messi in 16 and 15? Don't pass me whatever you are smoking. Copa is way easier than WC to reach finals in but no way argenitina would have reached finals without him.
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2015 Messi did nothing much first 4 games, Argentina still got results, Messi had a great game in the SF, the whole team had a great game, they won 6-1. Final, Messi has a good game, team as a whole has a good game defensively, but Higuain and Lavezzi miss chances and they lose on penalties. 2016 they beat USA and Venezuela to get to the final. They actually beat Chile without Messi. With Messi, they lost on penalties playing most of the game with a man advantage...

They are shambles without him and its evident from the fact that they ony won only 1 out of 6 matches without messi in WC qualifiers. Even when messi doesn't score he is the reason there is any attack happening and provides subtle influence in their attack by dropping deep. Not a single player comes to mind part from messi who could be absolved of blame of playing poorly.
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Yeah, but that goes for these world cup qualifiers. They weren't a shambles before, with or without Messi

This idea that he has made players worse is such bollocks, he regularly sacrifices his stats for others and the team.
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Well probably. Still, throughout Messi's career Argentina have always looked at their best when Messi wasn't the center of their universe but just the best of their many stars. When Messi acted as part of the team rather than being askes to be the team. And i can't help but wonder if part of the problem now is that argentina players defer too much to Messi
 
giorno said:
2015 Messi did nothing much first 4 games, Argentina still got results, Messi had a great game in the SF, the whole team had a great game, they won 6-1. Final, Messi has a good game, team as a whole has a good game defensively, but Higuain and Lavezzi miss chances and they lose on penalties. 2016 they beat USA and Venezuela to get to the final. They actually beat Chile without Messi. With Messi, they lost on penalties playing most of the game with a man advantage...


Yeah, but that goes for these world cup qualifiers. They weren't a shambles before, with or without Messi


Well probably. Still, throughout Messi's career Argentina have always looked at their best when Messi wasn't the center of their universe but just the best of their many stars. When Messi acted as part of the team rather than being askes to be the team. And i can't help but wonder if part of the problem now is that argentina players defer too much to Messi
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1) 2015 messi was amazing in 2 of the 3 group stage matches and recieved the man of the match in both and rejected on of those 2 because argentina didn't won one of them. Quarter final arrives and colombia seems to have the luckiest games of their lives and ball just doesn' seem to go in but they lose in penalties and man of the match is again messi. Semis arrive and messi doesn't score a single goal but has a hand in almost all of them and has a great game overall and yet another man of the match. The fact that he won these awards even without scoring just shows how good he must have been all game, and he was. I can't replay the match for you so I am showing his man of the match stats to show how good he was. In the final he has an off game as chile mark him out of the game and are playing quite physically also and once again higuain misses an easy chance so does one other moron. We go to panelties and messi scores his but higuain even misses his penalty. So messi had one subpar game in the final and the team couldn't even score penalties? None apart from messi scored his penalty and no one did nothing in attack and missed easy chances on top of that. Same thing in 2016 but I am too lazy to mention that all again. 2015 should be sufficient

2) They were not shamables because of a one or two good players apart from messi and now there is none. As a team they were flawed in attack for a long time. In WC there was a good di maria to help him and now there is none. And even in that form without messi they wouldn't have been able to do jack.

3) BS. You are saying the team will look better if messi sticks to his role and doesn't get involved much? It will be a huge disaster. The only reason argentina is what it is is because of messi's mammoth involvement. If he sticks to the right wing and waits for service then there is going to be no service for him because no player is capable of creating jack right now. I can understand midfielders defering responsibility of creating by passing messi the ball instead of trying to create but then how do Centre forwards that don't need to defer anything to messi and have the task to just score fail? Higuain is a good player in clubs and he can't score in a final if his life depended on it. 4 missed chances and counting. That too because he defers it to messi?
 
giorno said:
Four major finals between 2007 and 2016. That's not incompetence


Nope. Messi carried them in the group stages, and he and di maria and the post put them into the QF. Then the defence took them the rest of the way. The only thing Messi did against Belgium, Holland and Germany was missing chances. All 3 copa finals were the results of great team pefformances -in 2016 they would have gone to the final without Messi. Probably in '15 too, were Messi took a backseat until the SF against Paraguay


Not saying it is


The saying in question means Zidane could turn 10 pieces of wood into good players, not that he could win alone. And that's been Messi's problem with Argentina his entire career: he's never made his teammates better. In fact, there's an argument to be made that he's made some of them worse...
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Hyperbole at its finest.

Messi is held to completely absurd standards. Others pop into games for moments here and there and it's a job well done. If Zidane controls the games from deep everyone is delighted because he's not expected to do the job of Henry and Trezegue as well. Here's a clip of the game against Belgium. Messi missed a chance in added time when the match was over. The rest of the game he controlled through the centre of the park and played a part in the goal as well. He offers so much in the buildup and in running the match which goes unnoticed in this state obsessed era.

 
viscaelbarca said:
1) 2015 messi was amazing in 2 of the 3 group stage matches and recieved the man of the match in both and rejected on of those 2 because argentina didn't won one of them. Quarter final arrives and colombia seems to have the luckiest games of their lives and ball just doesn' seem to go in but they lose in penalties and man of the match is again messi. Semis arrive and messi doesn't score a single goal but has a hand in almost all of them and has a great game overall and yet another man of the match. The fact that he won these awards even without scoring just shows how good he must have been all game, and he was. I can't replay the match for you so I am showing his man of the match stats to show how good he was.
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Yeah, that's kinda my point actually. Messi was directly involved in 1 goal in the group phase -a penalty. Otherwise, he was good/great, without having to do everything. Other players were contributing just as much on their own. Argentina were great, they weren't a one man show. They lost the moment their opponents turned them into a one man show in fact.

And the 2016 copa america, argentina would have gotten exactly the same result without Messi.

2) They were not shamables because of a one or two good players apart from messi and now there is none. As a team they were flawed in attack for a long time. In WC there was a good di maria to help him and now there is none. And even in that form without messi they wouldn't have been able to do jack.
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Messi has been the center of their team and attack for a while now. He was very much part of that flaw. Still is, technically.

Now see, the part where you say they wouldn't have been able to do jack without Messi? I'm not convinced by that. Don't think they could have been better without him, but they were never supposed to be a one-man team, and they were at their worst when they were. I think argentinians for a long time demanded Messi become Maradona. Messi's not Maradona, never was, never will be

3) BS. You are saying the team will look better if messi sticks to his role and doesn't get involved much?
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No, i said argentina have been better when Messi wasn't asked to play saviour. When he didn't have to be involved in every attack, when other players tried stuff without going through him first. Basically, when Messi was a part of the team, rather than the team

Now, yea, they can't live without Messi right now. Half that team is mentally shot and the other half either hasn't been blooded enough or just isn't particularly good. As i said, argentina should have started getting rid of Higuain, Di Maria, Aguero, Biglia, etc, after the first round of qualifiers, when it was clear that pulling on the shirt weighted 100kgs for those guys. Now's too late, not the time for experiments. They definitely need to figure out how to make Messi and Dybala coexist before next summer if they qualify. If not, they can start planning the post-Messi

@amolbhatia50k yes it was clearly hyperbole, but it's funny that you mention the belgium game as some kind of undervalued performance. That's the definition of a 6.5 game(out of 10. Btw, his SF and Final were a 6[par] and a 5[below par]). And to say that Messi is held by some impossible standard is disingenous. He's Messi. Of course he's held by a much higher standard than everyone else. He's never had a truly great performance for Argentina at the highest stage aside from that '15 Copa SF against Paraguay. And that's the biggest blot on his resume.
 
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giorno said:
Maradona made 1986 Argentina a very good team. They're not even qualifying without him
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You can say the same about Zidane's 2006 team as well. They weren't even going to qualify for the WC if it wasn't for him coming out of retirement.
 
Infordin said:
Rulli
Mercado - Otamendi - Mascherano - Acuna
Biglia - Banega
Dybala - Messi - Di Maria
Higuain

In theory, this too is a team that consists entirely of players who play in Europe (and are regular starters for very good teams).
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Swap Dybala and messi, that's a world class team right there.
 
giorno said:
And that's been Messi's problem with Argentina his entire career: he's never made his teammates better. In fact, there's an argument to be made that he's made some of them worse...
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Nonsense. Argentina plays 10 times better when Messi is on the pitch. Without Messi, there's nothing that seperates Argentina from the bottom tier CONMEBOL teams in terms of performance.

Watch their games against Venezuela, Peru and Paraguay in September-October 2016.
 
giorno said:
2015 Messi did nothing much first 4 games, Argentina still got results, Messi had a great game in the SF, the whole team had a great game, they won 6-1. Final, Messi has a good game, team as a whole has a good game defensively, but Higuain and Lavezzi miss chances and they lose on penalties. 2016 they beat USA and Venezuela to get to the final. They actually beat Chile without Messi. With Messi, they lost on penalties playing most of the game with a man advantage...


Yeah, but that goes for these world cup qualifiers. They weren't a shambles before, with or without Messi


Well probably. Still, throughout Messi's career Argentina have always looked at their best when Messi wasn't the center of their universe but just the best of their many stars. When Messi acted as part of the team rather than being askes to be the team. And i can't help but wonder if part of the problem now is that argentina players defer too much to Messi
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That has nothing to do with saying he makes them worse no ?
 
dbs235 said:
Front four yes, rest of the team need a lot of work.
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Mascherano-Otamendi is a fine CB duo (plus Musacchio and Rojo on the bench). Rulli is also a good goalkeeper.

I agree that the midfield and fullbacks need to be improved upon. It's not that Mercado, Acuna, Biglia and Banega are bad players. It's that they are a clear tier below the best in their position.
 
Who is this Rulli ? I though Romero is their no. 1 ?

Argentina has strong enough CB and strikers. It is the midfield that sucks. Thats why Messi forced to play deeper.

Just dont get the idea of Messi in the midle, when you have typical midfield playmaker in Pastore.

Put Mascherano back as DM to protect Pastore, push Messi on the right, Dybala/Maria on the left, and Higuain/Icardi as CF.

Thats the way you win the game. Gago, Biglia, and Banega are not the answers.
 
Too many people think football works like Fifa 18. Messi - 93, Aguero - 88, Dybala - 87. Sure wins, right. It's a little more complicated than that, sadly for Argentina.
 
Can't really blames Messi for Argentina lackluster performances in the WC qualifier, but it's really time for him to step up and score some crucial goals if he wants to play in next WC, just like what he does all the time in Barca.
 
giorno said:
Yeah, that's kinda my point actually. Messi was directly involved in 1 goal in the group phase -a penalty. Otherwise, he was good/great, without having to do everything. Other players were contributing just as much on their own. Argentina were great, they weren't a one man show. They lost the moment their opponents turned them into a one man show in fact.

And the 2016 copa america, argentina would have gotten exactly the same result without Messi.


Messi has been the center of their team and attack for a while now. He was very much part of that flaw. Still is, technically.

Now see, the part where you say they wouldn't have been able to do jack without Messi? I'm not convinced by that. Don't think they could have been better without him, but they were never supposed to be a one-man team, and they were at their worst when they were. I think argentinians for a long time demanded Messi become Maradona. Messi's not Maradona, never was, never will be


No, i said argentina have been better when Messi wasn't asked to play saviour. When he didn't have to be involved in every attack, when other players tried stuff without going through him first. Basically, when Messi was a part of the team, rather than the team

Now, yea, they can't live without Messi right now. Half that team is mentally shot and the other half either hasn't been blooded enough or just isn't particularly good. As i said, argentina should have started getting rid of Higuain, Di Maria, Aguero, Biglia, etc, after the first round of qualifiers, when it was clear that pulling on the shirt weighted 100kgs for those guys. Now's too late, not the time for experiments. They definitely need to figure out how to make Messi and Dybala coexist before next summer if they qualify. If not, they can start planning the post-Messi

@amolbhatia50k yes it was clearly hyperbole, but it's funny that you mention the belgium game as some kind of undervalued performance. That's the definition of a 6.5 game(out of 10. Btw, his SF and Final were a 6[par] and a 5[below par]). And to say that Messi is held by some impossible standard is disingenous. He's Messi. Of course he's held by a much higher standard than everyone else. He's never had a truly great performance for Argentina at the highest stage aside from that '15 Copa SF against Paraguay. And that's the biggest blot on his resume.
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We are going around in circles. Other players were able to contibute in 2015 because of messi and his game. What do you expect when someone is carrying a team? That he scores every goal they score? Almost all goals had huge messi hand in them and needed a great attacking play to pull them off which would have not been possible if messi wasn't there.

Yes they wouldn't have done jack without messi and thats evident from the fact they won just one out six in WC qualifiers and none of those 6 were really great teams. Back then the team was bit better than now but still flawed.

Argentina hasn't asked messi to play saviour because they want it to be like that. You don't get it do you? He is playing saviour and is argentina himself because there is no one else to do shit. Messi doesn't have a god complex. If players were capable then messi would be playing strictly RW and not drop deep in midfield because no one can create for jack right now.

They couldn't have removed 4 of the players you mentioned. They are all great on paper and if their replacements hadn't worked then the coach would be under a lot of fire for not playing them.
 
Aza Boy said:
Who is this Rulli ? I though Romero is their no. 1 ?

Argentina has strong enough CB and strikers. It is the midfield that sucks. Thats why Messi forced to play deeper.

Just dont get the idea of Messi in the midle, when you have typical midfield playmaker in Pastore.

Put Mascherano back as DM to protect Pastore, push Messi on the right, Dybala/Maria on the left, and Higuain/Icardi as CF.

Thats the way you win the game. Gago, Biglia, and Banega are not the answers.
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Pastore is injured 75% of the time unfortunately.
 
Aza Boy said:
Ah, dunno bout that...too bad. But there is no choice for Argentina, even if they have to play Gung Ho, for the sake of WC, they must do it.
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I'm harsh: unavailable 50% of the time in the last 2 seasons. For example, he played 23 games with PSG last season.

This season, 5 games (2 goals) but injured since 3 weeks.
 
RedRonaldo said:
Can't really blames Messi for Argentina lackluster performances in the WC qualifier, but it's really time for him to step up and score some crucial goals if he wants to play in next WC, just like what he does all the time in Barca.
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He has to step up, but his teammates have to step up as well.
 
Santi_Mesut_Alexis_87 said:
He has to step up, but his teammates have to step up as well.
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Sure, football is a team game. But at his best, he has all the GOAT material to win it on his own too. Just like what Ronaldo has did it last night coming on from sub and winning the match for Portugal, sure Messi can do it too, if not better.
 
kouroux said:
That has nothing to do with saying he makes them worse no ?
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If they're not performing as well as they could because they have to defer to Messi at all times instead of trying to play their game, he's probably making them worse, no? If they don't know what to do when Messi's not playing because they're used to just pass him the ball and ask him to do everything, Messi's presence has made them worse. I'm not apportioning blame here, just pointing out that Argentina has rarely managed to find the right balance, and Messi's presence might have caused as many problems as it solved
 
giorno said:
If they're not performing as well as they could because they have to defer to Messi at all times instead of trying to play their game, he's probably making them worse, no? If they don't know what to do when Messi's not playing because they're used to just pass him the ball and ask him to do everything, Messi's presence has made them worse. I'm not apportioning blame here, just pointing out that Argentina has rarely managed to find the right balance, and Messi's presence might have caused as many problems as it solved
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Not for me, no. That's taking a major part of the responsibility off them. They're not children come on. Everyone is accountable for his own shortcoming. Sampaoli (and previous Argie managers) are to be blamed for that.
 
kouroux said:
Not for me, no. That's taking a major part of the responsibility off them. They're not children come on. Everyone is accountable for his own shortcoming. Sampaoli (and previous Argie managers) are to be blamed for that.
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You're saying it's not Messi's fault for that. I never said it is. My point is descriptive
 
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