World Cup Photos: Argentina 1-0 Nigeria – Messi Runs The Show

Ollie Irish

14th, June 2010

2 Comments

By Ollie Irish

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An Angentina fan in the stands.

As I suspected, after a dreary and unconvincing qualification campaign, Maradona’s Argentina came to life in South Africa. El Diego is clearly not cut out for the long grind of qualifying, but he is cut out for the big show – I’ve never seen so many cameras trained on one manager at a World Cup, and he loved it. He was about as entertaining to watch as what was happening on the pitch.

Argentina started very impressively, with Lionel Messi having one of his best games under Maradona, and would have won by several goals but for an excellent performance by Nigeria keeper Vincent Enyeama. I still think their back four is dodgy, and their keeper is not great either, but the amount of firepower they have is scary – you think England could leave a player as good as Diego Milito on the bench? No way.

Nigeria finished strongly and might even have snatched an undeserved equaliser. The Super Eagles may rue their lack of ambition in the first two thirds of the match, but they are also capable of beating South Korea and Greece, which should be enough to reach the second round.

Posted in Photos, World Cup

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2 Comments

  1. spectator says:

    i would have started milito ahead of higuain, but only on form.

    i wouldn’t say argentina’s back four is dodgy, the centre is strong but the wings are rubbish, which unduly taxes the centre and makes them look worse than they are.

  2. Deckard says:

    Well I thought Guiterrez as right-back was a serious mistake and, at least to me, clearly showed that Maradona was wrong not to take Javier Zanetti with him. It’s still boggles my mind how El Diego didn’t pick of one the best players of Europe this past season.

    I agree, the other defenders didn’t make a solid impression on me either. That when Nigeria didn’t even pose that much of an attacking threat. This could be very concerning when Argentina get to the latter stages.

    I noticed after a while all the balls were simply played to either Tevez or Messi and the rest of the team just gambled on their individual abilities. It’s no surprise then that those two players, in my mind, deserve a full 8/10 while I’d give the rest a 5.5 to 6.5 at best.

    I’m hoping Messi’s gonna electrify us in the upcoming games, it’d be a terrible shame if he didn’t.

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