World Cup 2018: 5 players who should be dropped by Argentina
La Albiceleste are knocked out of the 2018 World Cup by France in the round of 16. To be fair, Jorge Sampaoli’s side never got momentum in the tournament and performed well below their usual standards.
The needed a last-gasp Marcos Rojo strike to qualify for the last-16 but produced another below-par performance against the 1998 Champions France to bow out of the tournament.
They drew their opening group game against Iceland and then lost to Croatia 3-1 in their second game. They battled hard to beat Nigeria 2-1 to qualify for the round of 16.
Though Jorge Sampaoli had to take a fair share of the blame for their early World Cup exit, some of his players were really poor throughout the World Cup campaign. Lionel Messi did his part but was not able to inspire his teammates.
Without much ado, let’s take a look at the players who should be dropped by Argentina.
#5 Nicolas Otamendi
The Manchester City star was one of the poor performers for La Albiceleste in the World Cup. Though Pep Guardiola managed to win the Premier League title with Nicolas Otamendi as his defensive mainstay, his performances for Argentina were really poor. Guardiola’s tactics and Manchester City’s dominance shielded Otamendi throughput the PL campaign but it was not the case in the World Cup.
He was poor in the World Cup qualifiers for Argentina and was destroyed by Spain 6-1 in an international friendly in March. He was slow, indecisive, and regularly misplaced passes. He struggled to deal with the pace of the attacking players and was left stranded on multiple occasions.
He was really poor against Croatia and in the game against France, he was caught off guard by the pace of Kylian Mbappe. Argentina’s defensive instability was mainly due to his dismal performances.