Football Thread 21/22

[LipeJJ]

Hiku said:

haxxiy said:

Or they will prevail regardless the next time around, it's not that unusual in football. In 1990 Argentina pretty much stumbled the whole tournament all the way to the finals.

I felt the same about Spain in 2010. In spite of being extremely strong on paper (they were basically Barcelona - Messi + a few Real Madrid players) they only managed to do 1-0 all the way throughout the entire knockout stage. And the goal in the final from Iniesta came during overtime.
In the group stages they weren't convincing either, losing to Switzerland.
Argentina during the 2014 World Cup also stumbled their way to the final, with basically Messi making an unlikely goal in the last minute half of the time.

So you never know. Even teams I expect more from like 2010 Spain some times fail to be convincing, but can still go all the way.
I was still happy that Spain won though and was rooting for them all the way, because I know what they're capable of at their highest level. They just weren't able to display it on many of those particular days unfortunately.

The difference is that Spain was a coherent and organized team that dominated most of the matches played. Meanwhile, Argentina is unstable, plays badly most of the time and has a very bad management by their coach. Not to mention their mental state which is not very good after all the traumas they suffered in the past 20+ years (losing on 7 finals, media’s and nation’s pressure, Messi threatening to abandon the national team, and so on). They also heavily depend on one player (Messi), which was not the case of Spain either. 

I get what you’re saying, but Spain was a solid team during 2010 WC, but that’s not the case of Argentina, that don’t even look like a team, like specialists say.

Last edited by LipeJJ - on 27 June 2018