What Happened To: Argentina?

The South American side reached the final four years ago, narrowly losing to Germany 1-0. Seemingly always having a competitive team, Argentina have are one of just eight nations to win the World Cup, and right now have one of the best players in the world: Lionel Messi. In the 2018 World Cup in Russia, Argentina were poor. Very poor. Coach Jorge Sampaoli looked as if each game was the first time he had coached this group of players, and it quickly became up to veterans like Messi to drag the team through to the knockout round. Coming off the back of an embarrassing 1-1 draw with Iceland, and a whopping 3-0 loss against Croatia, Argentina had to beat Nigeria, and hope the Croat’s did them a favor, to reach the next stage of the competition. All the chips fell into place, largely thanks to Messi, and Argentina would face France in the Round of 16. They would need to step up significantly to avoid defeat to the French. The match ended in a 4-3 loss, which doesn’t sound too bad, particularly when playing a team who would go on to win the World Cup. However, the scoreline fails to tell the whole story, with Argentina well capable of conceding countless more goals, and thus completing their debacle and elimination from proceedings.

Argentina’s problems started during qualification. CONMEBOL is a notoriously difficult region to get out of, with every single team fielding quality players. Moreover, with the qualification process lasting more than a year, and being eighteen games long, the form of players will come and go, meaning that we often see huge personnel changes throughout the qualification period. Another dynamic aspect of this region is the vast array of conditions that teams play in. In places like Brazil, the humidity is a major factor during games. Chile and other dry nations often play in very hot temperatures that many players aren’t used to. In Bolivia, the altitude comes into play. To be a star in South America, you don’t just have to be a good soccer player. You have to be a true athlete. Due to the mentioned differences between playing conditions in each nation, we often see results that might come as a shock, with home field advantage really coming into play. Five teams qualify from this region, four automatically, and one with a chance to reach the tournament via a playoff. Argentina sat rock bottom of the ten team table for weeks and weeks, and it took some major home wins by them, and other teams dropping points when playing away, to put them within reaching distance of Russia. With Brazil, Uruguay, and Colombia looking powerful, realistically, Argentina and the other nations were playing for fourth and fifth place. With time moving on, and Peru and Chile looking rampant, Argentina knew that they would need results quickly to make it, with everything coming down to the final matchday. Messi strapped the team on his back, scoring a hat trick in the final game of qualifying, and sending the team through, condemning Peru to a playoff with New Zealand, and eliminating Chile altogether. This came as a shock to many, particularly given Argentina’s poor form, and Chile’s excellence in recent time. When you have a player like Messi though, anything is possible.

On paper, Argentina should have no problems. Between Messi, Gonzalo Higuain, Sergio Aguero, Paulo Dybala, and Angel Di Maria, they arguably have the best attacking set of players in the world. Period. The Argentines should have no problem scoring goals. In midfield, they have experience galore, with Javier Mascherano in particular, one player who seems to always be a difference maker for club or country. At the back, Nicolas Otamendi had a stellar season with Manchester City, and there are plenty of other well known stars, playing for top teams, that should allow the national team to be successful and problem free. So what exactly went wrong? The issue then, at least on paper, came from the coach. Jorge Sampaoli, who has since lost his job, was a very polarizing character. A very competitive, defensive player in short-lived playing career, Sampaoli seemingly liked to focus on the team not losing, as opposed to the team winning. Thus, he played players out of position, omitting stars like Dybala from the team to suit his more defensive playing style, and tinkering with the team and formation so much, that they could get no rhythm and experience playing together at all. This focus on defense didn’t seem to work out too well, with Argentina leaking goals like a sieve, and the team looked stagnant and generally ineffective as a whole. It is Sampaoli who managed Sevilla when that team really stalled back in 2016, having just won numerous trophies under Unai Emery, and it is he who also caused Argentina to stall. Sevilla stars Steven N’Zonzi and Ever Banega fell out of favor under Sampaoli in Spain, with the latter moving to Italy. After Sampaoli left Spain to coach the Argentina national team, N’Zonzi found his form again, earning his first French caps at the age of 29, and Banega returned to Sevilla, thus proving just how much of a problem Coach Sampaoli was. During qualification and the World Cup itself, it really seemed like the players had zero respect for their coach, with Messi famously mouthing “are you going to bring on Kun (Aguero) or not?” Regardless of coaching ability, it is so important for your players to have at least some respect for you. Sampaoli was not the only coach in Russia who did not have the respect of his team. Juan Carlos Osorio, and to a certain extent Gareth Southgate, are in the same boat, and unsurprisingly, neither Mexico or England were all that impressive despite both reaching the knockout stages. Many people underestimate the necessity of looking up to one’s coach, and this will have been a major factor in Argentina’s embarrassing downfall. The signs were there since qualification, and nobody noticed or chose to speak up. This is truly shocking, and Argentina payed the ultimate price.

Sampaoli’s tactics, or rather lack of them, are another thing that could have caused the national team’s demise. The passing game was ultimately what hurt Argentina, with the team lacking any liaison between the backline and the forwards. Mascherano is good at helping out the defense, but is less than useless with the ball at his feet looking for passes. Argentina no longer have that Juan Roman Riquelme-esque player, who runs box to box, creating chances going forward. It is hard for Messi and his fellow attacking stars to create from out wide, and Argentina were incredibly one dimensional in Russia. Moreover, with Mascherano, Enzo Perez, and Lucas Biglia realizing how isolated their front three were, they each tried supplementing the trio from deep, which left huge holes between the midfield and defense too. When playing against creative players like Luka Modric, and speedy stars like Ahmed Musa, this was a recipe for disaster. Messi and Di Maria were quite honestly the only players for Argentina who were even half good. Nicolas Tagliafico was fairly effective when making overlapping runs, but he made them far too infrequently. His other defenders were left so isolated by the midfield that it was easy to either dribble or pass around them, and goalkeeper Willy Caballero was left with zero support whatsoever. Otamendi, Mascherano, and Gabriel Mercado let their emotions get the better of them far too often, and as whole, Argentina were a shambles.

So what next? Well, rumors are that Argentina are looking at Peru coach Ricardo Gareca as a potential replacement for Sampaoli. Gareca is a fantastic coach who definitely is a fan favorite in South America, having found success coaching in Brazil and Argentina too. He is a wise manager, who has the respect of his Peruvian players, so could create the same atmosphere in the Argentina camp. Whoever the new coach is, they need to work hard to find the next generation of midfield and defensive talent. While Dybala, Aguero, and Cristian Pavon give hope for the future in terms of goalscoring, Argentina lack any real youth defensively. Argentina should take a leaf out of Uruguay’s book, and look domestically. Two of the best midfielders in Russia were the Uruguayan pair of Rodrigo Betancur and Nahitan Nandez, both of whom, at least until very recently, played domestically in South America. Even Lucas Torreira, Cristian Rodriguez, and Mathias Vecino played a large chunk of their game locally before earning big money moves to Europe after showing their talents on the world stage a few years back. Uruguay’s midfield is set for the next decade, and they will only get stronger as they play together more often. This is what Argentina need to replicate, and they need to copy it for their back line as well. There will be Argentinian stars in the making, lurking in the leagues of the South American nations, and in lower European divisions too, with Pavon and Maxi Meza examples of this. The new coach just has to find them, and give them time to show their worth. There are several current players on the team who are washed up and need to be replaced. A man like Gareca will have no problem doing this, and in a nation such as Argentina, the future will always be bright. I would also suspect that Messi isn’t quite finished yet. He will relish the chance to don the national team jersey one final time in Qatar in 2022, if Argentina can navigate qualification that is. He would be 35 years old and would likely not play a full match, but it would be truly sad for arguably the best player of this generation to not have a World Cup winner’s medal in his trophy cabinet. Hopefully, he will have a better coach, and a more hardworking squad around him, to allow him the chance to go out on a high.