Argentina’s dreary World Cup qualifying malaise continued with a 3-0 defeat against Brazil on Thursday night as Philippe Coutinho, Neymar and Paulinho did the damage in Belo Horizonte.
Coutinho opened the scoring in the 25th minute when, surprise surprise, he cut in from the left and lashed a 25-yard strike past Sergio Romero and into the top corner…
A nice little burst of movement saw Neymar break past the Argentinian back-line before being played in to slot home Brazil’s second goal of the night, just minutes before half-time…
Ex-Tottenham midfielder Paulinho then popped up to add the third with roughly an hour on the clock, stabbing a loose ball past Romero from 18-yards to flesh out the scoreline…
That was shortly after Ramiro Funes Mori did some textbook Funes Mori-ing in the general direction of Neymar’s ankles…
Patadón de Funes Mori a Neymar. Argentina pierde 2-0 ante Brasil #EliminatoriasEnTyC https://t.co/irLgvPsW3J
— TyC Sports (@TyCSports) November 11, 2016
Christ. He really is a liability, isn’t he?
Anyway, the comprehensive victory leaves Brazil top of the tree as far as the CONMEBOL 2018 World Cup qualification pool is concerned, with Argentina languishing way down in sixth spot, one point behind Chile in fifth.
The top four – currently Brazil, Uruguay, Colombia and Ecuador – qualify automatically, with fifth place going into a play-off against the Oceania group winners.
Basically, Lionel Messi and co. have got seven games left to get their bloody arses in gear.