Will much-needed win over Paraguay spark Argentina into life?
On Tuesday night in La Serena, you would imagine, Leo Messi slept a lot more soundly. Argentina meanwhile might finally wake up.
The story after their 2-2 draw against Paraguay was that Messi couldn’t rest, so frustrated was he with the manner of his team’s collapse. That could be felt throughout and after this 1-0 win over Uruguay, given the evident tension that so constrained his team’s play, and then the obvious relief once they had finally secured their first victory of this Copa America after a late surge by Oscar Tabarez’s side.
It was as if a deep air of doubt had been lifted, but it does also raise a big question about this side.
Is Argentina’s stifled performance level merely a consequence of all the pressure of so deeply needing a win in order to calm minds, or is it just the style of manager Gerardo Martino?
It wouldn’t be the first time such accusations have been levelled at the former Barcelona coach, and this wasn’t the first time that Argentina looked a little less than the sum of their parts. Of course, it can’t be overlooked that Uruguay did much to make sure that was the case, to so disrupt Martino’s side.
Tabarez’s team offered 34 tackles and 22 fouls, which was 13 challenges more than Paraguay in their game against Argentina, and five more fouls. Uruguay’s main objective in this game was obvious, and somewhat inevitable given the supreme quality of the attackers they were facing.
“I always believe that, in the creation of a team, you have to also analyse the opposition,” Martino argued after the game. “I think Pastore had a very good game, finding more balls than against Paraguay. We have a lot of people that can do damage to the opposition.”
The wonder, then, is why we so rarely see them combining and why the brilliant key goal - Pastore creating space so wonderfully and Pablo Zabaleta then crossing so brilliantly for Sergio Aguero - felt like a moment they were waiting for their better players to produce out of nothing rather than a natural consequence of their play.
The most frustrating thing about Argentina is that, with such stars in their team, you would reasonably expect the most frequent images from their matches to be those players gloriously linking up. That never really happened.
Instead, during a frustrating first half in which Uruguay sat back so doggedly, the most frequent images were much more mundane. They were the sights of players like Nicolas Otamendi, Lucas Biglia and Ezequiel Garay on the ball and trying to pick out a progressive pass, only to have to turn back and look for each other again.
It can be seen in the stats, and it took so much zip from Argentina’s play.
There was one moment in the second half when Biglia was on the ball in the centre and gamely looking for the right option, only to have to turn back and give it to Javier Mascherano. It is little wonder the Barca midfielder played the most passes for Argentina, with 85, or that those three other defensive players were the individuals with the next highest numbers.
It indicated an Argentine side that are still a little too rigid in approach, that doesn’t allow the fluency in formation to create those overlaps and interchanges that open up opposition defences. Leo Messi himself made this all too clear. He so often stayed too far wide and away from the play, rather than cut in and take command as he does for Barcelona.
It does say much that Argentina then increasingly tried to work the ball down his side, as they played it down the right on 44% of attacks, compared to just 29% against Paraguay. The goal naturally came down that side, then, although only after Messi had finally found space inside before working the ball out to Pastore on the flank.
It produced a goal of profound quality, but the sort we should see more of from this side. The hope is that the relief of this win will finally release the players, but it may require Martino to unshackle them.
This team still has a conundrum at its core. They of course have the players to so often solve it but the curiosity is why they are still so minimalist. It’s time to maximise that brilliance.