Chelsea striker Gonzalo Higuain officially announced hanging shoes from the Argentine national team. The player who was borrowed from Juventus claimed that he wanted to focus with the club and his family.
Furthermore, Higuain also claimed to be tired because he continued to be criticized by Argentine’s fans.
“My cycle with the national team is over. Now, I will only watch them from outside the field, for the sake of many people,”
“I’ve talked to coach Lionel Scaloni and conveyed my views. The decision is unanimous. It’s the best for me.”
Gonzalo Higuain is indeed having a hard time. Despite in the Argentine national team, he also faced hard times when competing with the club he currently defends, Chelsea FC. He even claimed it was difficult to adapt to the London city team.
His coach, Maurizio Sarri, also thought that Higuain was having a difficult time. Joining since the winter 2019 transfer market, with a loan status, Higuain has not been able to adapt to the style of English Premier League football.
It was noted that Higuain was only able to score three goals. He even scored his goal against the not-so-strong teams like Huddersfield Town and Fulham. When he faced some big teams or midfielders, Higuain is powerless as happened when Chelsea was beaten by Everton a few weeks ago.
In fact, if you look at the past few years, Higuain is a very fertile attacker. While playing under Sarri with Napoli, Higuain had scored 36 goals in 35 matches in Serie A. During the three seasons at Napoli, Higuain even had an average of 30 goals per season in all competitions. In total, he has contributed 91 goals to il partenopei.
After an adventure with Napoli, Higuain was recruited by the Serie A king, Juventus. At that time, the Old Lady agreed to redeem Gonzalo Higuain’s buyout clause which worth 90 million euros or around 1.3 trillion rupiahs.
Together with the Zebra Team, his goal record is no less flashy. Debuting against Fiorentina, Higuain equaled a series of his own best goals after routinely scoring goals in six consecutive matches. In two seasons with La Vecchia Signora, Higuain successfully scored 40 goals in 73 matches.
In addition, Higuain also helped the Bianconeri won double titles which were the Scudetto and the Coppa Italia, in both seasons with the Turin club. He also appeared in the 2017 Champions League final, although in the end, Juve had to submit to Real Madrid.
But when he was loaned to AC Milan, his performance seemed to get worse. That was what made Higuain moved to Chelsea. Having been mentioned as a successor to Alvaro Morata who was unable to do much, Higuain’s performance was even sluggish. In fact, he reunited with his former coach at Napoli, Maurizio Sarri.
The three things that made Higuain’s never-improving performance at Chelsea are, the first is about the difficulty of adapting to English football. Higuain might be successful in Spain and Italy. But England is a different competition. He must be really aggressive to be able to score a lot of goals.
The second is about his performance which is less convincing in the first half. Playing 22 times during the half season with AC Milan, Higuain was only able to score eight goals. This condition made him had to fight hard to improve his sharpness. Moreover, Premier League defenders were very tough and powerful players.
Then the last thing is about his playing style that doesn’t match Chelsea. Higuain is a striker with a poacher character. He is more often in the area of the opponent’s defense and rarely helps the team in building attacks. In fact, Chelsea under the direction of Maurizio Sarri applied a 4-3-3 tactic. Sarri needs players who can help to attack from the back to the front.
With this kind of playing style, Higuain is hard to develop his own performance.
