Reflecting on Argentina's performance in the world cup

Now that it's been a few days and the dust has settled on the world cup, I thought I'd share my thoughts on Argentina and how they performed.

I had been following the Argentina national team in the weeks leading up to the world cup starting and noted a few things:

- There were a number of injuries to key players in the lead up to the tournament starting

- Scaloni selected a number of players for the team knowing that they would still be injured into the tournament, he later said he had to rely on trusting them at their word that they would be fit enough to compete as the tournament progressed

- They didn't face any real competitive sides in friendlies in the lead up either.

- Messi, while still being able to conjure up brilliance at any moment, was looking slower than he ever had been, which obviously makes sense given his age, honestly it's incredible whenever anyone at that age is still able to compete at that level

All in all, I thought Argentina were likely to get through the group stage, but wouldn't put an upset past them, and I didn't think they'd get very far in the knockout rounds, especially since I thought they were likely to face Uruguay, Paraguay and Portugal in the knockout rounds and Argentina have struggled with the first two in recent matches.

But then the tournament started, and things got better and worse at the same time.

- Firstly, Messi was playing well... really well. He still didn't have that pace anymore, but the turn of pace was there, and the technical ability was so incredible to watch, at times I felt like a kid again marvelling at my football idols like I used to.

- The team however, didn't play great, it was masked by other teams respecting Argentina a little too much, and a lack of ability for other teams to take the match to Argentina, but I noticed it. Their midfield looked sluggish, their defence looked brittle, and Dibu looked like he was lacking sharpness in goal.

- Also I noticed how all the other forwards bar Messi, were struggling to score.

Overall it was the type of group stage that, if not for Messi, Argentina may have been hoping to get through the knockout rounds in third place.

In any case, the team topped the group, Messi made it look easy, and generally masked a lot of problems the team had underneath.

Then the knockout stages came:

- Cabo Verde: an incredible team, with incredible heart and determination. They seemed to be getting better and better with each game, and saved their best match for Argentina. They showed some of Argentina's fragility in midfield and defence, and scored some fantastic goals. They proved the draw against Spain was no fluke, and Argentina showed that fighting spirit that would continue to show in later matches, but they looked tired, really tired.

- Egypt: They started off so strong, and could have easily been up 3-0 by half time. Watching that match live, I thought this is where we say goodbye to Argentina, and that Egypt's game plan took over from where Cabo Verde left things off. But then the comeback was incredible to witness, and started to showcase not just the fighting spirit we saw from Argentina against Cabo Verde, but also that the forwards for Argentina weren't going to rely purely on Messi to get some goals. However, they still looked tired, really tired.

- Switzerland: Argentina had the best start, an early goal to get things going, surely more to come! But that equalising goal from Switzerland felt all too familiar. Argentina score a goal and then take it easy, drop their guard, and stop trying. Switzerland are allowed to have all of the ball and start building momentum. I remember saying out loud that Switzerland are going to score if Argentina don't start pressing and holding the ball in the midfield, and within 2 minutes, Switzerland scored. Then they kept the momentum, and before we got a chance to see what might happen, that second yellow for Embolo came and the rest is history. Even though it was 11 v 10, Switzerland set up to get to penalties, and it was genuinely hard for Argentina to score. Argentina got the chance to show that fighting spirit once more. And what's more Messi didn't score, he didn't need to, the team was actually stepping up.

By this stage, Argentina were starting to show a pattern to their play. They were clearly fatigued, lacking match fitness, and those injuries I mentioned at the beginning were still needing to be managed. So Scaloni would play a default team, try to keep the match tight, get to 70 minutes, and then make substitutions to try and turn the game around and add more pace to it. He had the same type of substitutions he would make across the pitch to inject pace in the defence, midfield, and forward line. It was tough, they were clearly tired, but they looked like they could make it work, and their players looked like they were starting to peak at the right time. Scaloni was going to field a makeshift team that would get him through each round, and it was working.

The England match: By this one, I started to change my tune, I thought this was a winnable game, and the first half went to plan. Keep the match tight, get to the second half, and then look to make rotations. Funnily enough, when England scored, I didn't think that was the end for Argentina, and while so many people seem to be blaming Tuchel on England's collapse, they failed to see that for the first 5 minutes after England scored, England were trying to press, trying to win balls in the midfield, trying to maintain possession. It's just that Argentina were pressing hard, and England were slowly getting nervous. They slowly inched back more and more and more. Tuchel did make the wrong substitutions in my eyes, and it only made the pressure worse, but still, Argentina still had to score. However by the 80th minute, when I had friends messaging me saying they couldn't see a way out for Argentina, I honestly thought Argentina was going to win this match. I thought it'd be in extra time, but I thought they'd win, and they did.

The Final

How the hell did Argentina make back-to-back finals? Here I was thinking I couldn't believe that this team, that had so many injury issues, that was lacking match sharpness when the tournament started, and had a 39-year-old that couldn't outrun his opponents anymore, would be playing in another final. I couldn't believe how Argentina had managed to grind their way through each match.

The final though, was just one match too many for Argentina, the injuries, fatigue, and general match fitness became the problem that got in the way for Scaloni to apply his gameplan. He burned his substitution rounds mostly reacting to injuries, so much so that he couldn't do major rotations in the 70th minute like he normally would. Then the red card for Enzo meant that when he got an extra sub back in extra time, he had to use it more defensively, he was going to aim to get to penalties. And incredibly... it almost worked. Dibu was finally on form and honestly, he looked as though, if Argentina got to penalties, he may have got them over the line. Despite that, Spain won the final, deservedly so.

It later emerged that Paredes had played the last three matches, including the final, with a cracked rib. That's not the profile of a team that lost because they didn't care. Looking back, it's easy for people to paint over Argentina's performance across the whole tournament with the same brush of how they played in the final. Honestly they played hard in the final, too hard. And part of it was because they were tired. For those of you who've played football professionally, semi-professionally, etc., will know what that's like, when you have no legs left, so you start going into tackles harder than you should, because you have nothing left.

But looking back at the whole tournament, that's not how Argentina played. Messi willed Argentina through the group stages, and then slowly his team started showing up in the knockout phases, helping him get through each match. The will, determination, and guts it takes from a team to not give up is something special, that honestly I hadn't seen from previous Argentina sides from the early 2000s.

And that's why they came home to a parade, and to a country that thanked them rather than mourned a loss. Because losing a final on penalties or in extra time to a team that outworked you for 120 minutes doesn't erase what this generation has built. Copa America 2021, World Cup 2022, Copa America 2024, and now a second straight World Cup final, reached with a squad held together by injuries, fatigue, and sheer will. Not every great team gets to win every time. But this team gave everything it had, right down to players fighting through injuries nobody even knew about until it was over. That's the kind of side Argentina will remember for a long time, final result and all.