Argentina, which was again reinforced by Lionel Messi unexpectedly had to recognize the superiority of Venezuela with a score of 1-3 in an international friendly match held at Wanda Metropolitano, Madrid, sometimes ago. Lionel Messi and his colleagues were unable to do much and had to surrender to be hit by three goals from the opposing team.
This defeat resulted in many questions. What really happened to the Argentine National Team?
Assigned as a substitute of the god of football, Diego Maradona, Lionel Messi is unable to perform optimally under the banner of Team Tango. He is not as brilliant as when he was wearing a jersey of FC Barcelona. His magic was faded away and raised many questions.
Is all the deterioration of the Argentine National Team pinned on Lionel Messi’s shoulder? It does not seem so.
It is true that the appearance of Lionel Messi in the Argentine national team was not as good as when he grazed on El Barca. The Tango Country’s football legend, Daniel Passarella, even mentioned that there was something wrong with La Pulga every time defending Albiceleste. He called Messi as a different player than he appeared in Barcelona.
“Messi is a great player who can give a lot to every team he supports,”
“But when Messi played for Barcelona, his attitude looked different. He played much better there. Sometimes things like that do happen in football. You play well for the team and they love you, but on the other hand, you feel discomfort and something does not seem right,”
“I don’t know what it is, but it is clear that it was something that you or Messi felt from the heart,”
But back again, it was unfair if all Argentina’s inability to win is only blamed on Messi. As you already know, there are big names like Aguero, Di Maria, Higuain, or even talented player like Paulo Dybala.
Although famous with their respective clubs, in fact, they were unable to bring Argentina to fly high. In the White Bear Country, Argentina must be defeated by the French national team which eventually win the championship trophy. The Tango team conquered the Rooster Team with a score of 3-4 in the Round of 16 of the 2018 World Cup.
Worse yet, Argentina must carve a bad record of defeat. Argentina felt their first time defeat despite scoring three goals. That record is a record in 430 overall competitive games.
Not only that, but Argentina also became the first team since the Soviet Union in 1986, which scored three goals on the World Cup stage, but failed to win. The defeat of France also added to the long row of negative records of Tango Team when they arrived at the European team.
Bad record is also not only experienced by Argentina in the 2018 World Cup title. In the qualification phase, they also did not look up to the point of being threatened not to appear in Russia. Of the 17 matches played, Argentina only scored 16 goals or the second least from Bolivia which scored 14 goals during qualifying.
Having a lot of quality players just made the Argentine coach at that time confused. These advantages cannot be mixed well by Jorge Sampaoli. He was having trouble forming the right formation for Argentina.
Seeing his country has no authority in the eyes of the world, Diego Maradona is angry. He said if all the players did not deserve to wear the historic jersey of the National Tango. Maradona who was disappointed then said,
“I am a very Argentinian and I feel like I am part of a different group of players and coaches. I know Oscar Ruggeri, Gabriel Batistuta, Claudio Caniggia, and this team is very inappropriate to wear the costume,”
Although angry, Maradona also did not want to blame Lionel Messi. He instead asked the FC Barcelona player to ignore all criticism. Because defeat is not his fault. According to the legend, the Argentine national team is indeed bad.
According to the observations of football lovers, who deserves the responsibility for the downfall of the Argentine National Team?
