{"id":981,"date":"2018-06-17T21:56:50","date_gmt":"2018-06-17T16:26:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/?p=981"},"modified":"2018-06-17T22:10:33","modified_gmt":"2018-06-17T16:40:33","slug":"5-key-problems-argentinas-albiceleste-are-facing-this-world-cup-russia-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/2018\/06\/17\/5-key-problems-argentinas-albiceleste-are-facing-this-world-cup-russia-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Key Problems Argentina’s Albiceleste are facing this World Cup Russia 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"

1. Stop Messi, Stop Argentina-Messi’s One Man Show strategy failing Argentina<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Lionel Messi has missed four of the last seven penalties that he has taken for Barcelona & Argentina combined (57%) but still, Messi has been viewed as Argentina’s leading man who can potentially to lead them to World Cup glory at Russia 2018.<\/p>\n

Argentina’s dependence on\u00a0 Lionel Messi has proved to be catastrophic for the Barcelona great as Messi often finds himself taking key decisions on the pitch. Argentina has to let Messi play with freedom and pressure as he does in Barcelona and possibly someone like Di Maria or Aguero could take the spot-kick duties.<\/p>\n

This being Messi’s last World Cup,\u00a0Jorge Sampaoli should let Messi play without carrying the weight of the nation or to be bogged down by the thoughts of winning the World Cup in his parting shot.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

2.Questionable Playing XI<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

That Argentina XI looks really poor, to be honest. A midfield pairing of Biglia-Mascherano(?) looks lethargic and brings no real drive. Rojo somehow a starter despite playing less than 10 times for Manchester United last season. Meza will be interesting to watch but leaving out someone as talented like Cristian Pav\u00f3n and\u00a0 Paulo Dybala is certainly a questionable\u00a0call.<\/p>\n

Cristian Pav\u00f3n is a fast, direct goal threat who is good at occupying, and attacking through, wide channels. At least give Iceland a different – and more difficult -skill sett to account for. His main skill is his short and fast dribble which, along with his determination to go up to defenders looking for one-on-one situations, if given his due opportunity by Sampaoli, Pavon can light up the World Cup.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

3. Midfield Problems: Age, Speed and Accuracy<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00c1ngel Di Mar\u00eda has now created 23 goalscoring chances for Argentina over three different World Cup tournaments, but none of those have assisted a goal.<\/p>\n

PSG winger is a shadow of his Real Madrid days alongside\u00a0Biglia-Mascherano pair who cannot maintain the intensity\u00a0of maintaining box to box midfield role or provide enough quality in the attacking third to create chances as the directions and ideas for constructing an attack leading up to the goal seems predictably built around Lionel Messi.<\/p>\n

Putting Dybala coming off another wonderful season with Juventus, instead of Di Maria could be an interesting change with Dybala and Pavon running the channels and Messi playing his usual playmaker role behind Kun Aguero could spark off magic for Argentina in the attacking third.<\/p>\n

Fact:<\/strong> Lionel Messi (11) attempted seven shots more than Cristiano Ronaldo (4) on the opening matchday of the 2018 World Cup, but the Portuguese forward scored three goals compared to Messi’s none.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

4. Supporting players for Messi: Pav\u00f3n, Dybala, Giovani Lo Celso not in Starting XI<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Leonel Messi attempted 11 shots for Argentina vs Iceland (the most he\u2019s ever attempted in a World Cup game), but he still didn\u2019t manage to score a goal. Since 1966, only Luigi Riva has attempted more shots in a World Cup game (13 vs both Sweden and Israel in 1970) without scoring than Lionel Messi did today against Iceland (since 1966). Aguero and Higuain need to share the attacking responsibilities.<\/p>\n

Argentina<\/span> culminated the first time with a 78% possession. Messi completed 352 correct passes (92% effectiveness).Argentina needs to find the right attacking combination for Messi. Dybala has been long ignored in the Argentina playing XI due to his similar\u00a0playing style and position to Messi but after the disastrous game against Iceland, Sampaoli should consider playing Paulo Dybala and Giovani Lo Celso in the midfield to bring some flair and speed in that slow looking Argentine midfield.<\/p>\n

Fact<\/strong>:The last time that Lionel Messi attempted as many shots without scoring (11) in a competitive game for club or country was in December 2017 for Barcelona vs Deportivo de La Coru\u00f1a.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

5.Unstable Defence:\u00a0Eduardo Salvio, Nicolas Otamendi, Marcos Rojo, Nicolas Tagliafico<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The back four of Argentina\u00a0Eduardo Salvio, Nicolas Otamendi, Marcos Rojo, Nicolas Tagliafico doesn’t generate much confidence. Otamendi from Blue half of Manchester and Rojo from the Red looked shaky against the little known\u00a0Gunnarsson, Gudmundsson\u00a0and Finnbogason could give scary moments to Argentine fans in the later stages if they come up against bigger teams.<\/p>\n

Defensively, Argentina looked a mess at times, despite controlling play for long stretches. During his pregame news conference, Argentina coach Sampaoli said he picked Rojo and Nicolas Otamendi in defence and Javier Mascherano and Biglia in midfield because of the quality of their passing. But Rojo looked very suspect with his distribution in his own third. His error nearly gifted Iceland a goal early, only for Bjarnason to squander the chance. Rojo and Otamendi also struggled at times to deal with Iceland’s direct play, and as a consequence, Iceland were able to create some chances.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/h1>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1. Stop Messi, Stop Argentina-Messi’s One Man Show strategy failing Argentina Lionel Messi has missed four of the last seven penalties that he has taken for Barcelona & Argentina combined (57%) but still, Messi has been viewed as Argentina’s leading man who can potentially to lead them to World Cup glory at Russia 2018. Argentina’s dependence on\u00a0 Lionel Messi has proved to be catastrophic for the Barcelona great as Messi often finds himself taking key decisions on the pitch. Argentina has to let Messi play with freedom and pressure as he does in Barcelona and possibly someone like Di Maria or Aguero could take the spot-kick duties. This being Messi’s … Continue reading “5 Key Problems Argentina’s Albiceleste are facing this World Cup Russia 2018”<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":983,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[389,390,395,396,388,392,391,393,394],"class_list":["post-981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-angel-di-maria","tag-duardo-salvio","tag-dybala","tag-giovani-lo-celso","tag-lionel-messi","tag-marcos-rojo","tag-nicolas-otamendi","tag-nicolas-tagliafico","tag-pavon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/981\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}