The draw against Iceland in their opening fixture meant that Argentina needed to step up in their second game against Croatia. But they did the complete opposite as they lost to Croatia 3-0 on Thursday.
After Argentina failed to get the three crucial points against Iceland in the first game, Argentina’s coach Jorge Sampaoli advocated a new style of play in the second match that failed. The idea being that a bit of chaos created would free up Messi to get the ball in unsettled situations, but that did not happen.
Croatia’s midfielder cancelled out the plans etched out by Sampaoli as they were quick to lock down Messi, thereby reducing his involvement in the game.
Messi couldn’t run all over the pitch to get the ball at his feet when Argentina had possession, because Argentina didn’t dominate possession like they did against Iceland.
After the horrendous mistake by the Argentine goalkeeper Willy Caballero in the 53rd minute, Sampaoli completely lost the plot, throwing on Higuain, taking off Aguero, bringing on other attacking players, as Argentina kept trying to do the same thing they’d been doing all game.
Things took a turn for the worse as Argentina all but quit after Luka Modric scored a beauty in the 80th minute of the game. The injury time goal by Ivan Rakitic was just a formality as most of the Argentine players did not even bother to jog back onto defence by that point.
The defeat leaves the Argentinians facing an ignominious repeat of their 2002 campaign when they also went out at the group stage after being tipped as possible World Cup winners. Argentina is now in a difficult position to advance out of Group D after securing just one point in the first two games.