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Originally Posted by demonrail666

Obviously a completely different game to the Italy-Uruguay one, but I did really enjoy it. Not a tactical battle, as you say, but some really good attacking play from both sides. And I'm not sure I agree about the Messi point. He's obviously their main man but I thought Di Maria was excellent and on another day could've easily scored a couple himself. And as weak as they seem in defence, I love Zabaleta and been really impressed with Rojo, who I didn't know anything about prior to the WC - although I'm not sure he's actually a defender. in any conventional sense.

I ultimately came away thinking Argentina had finally become everything the pundits had predicted, both good and bad: they're great going forward but clearly very suspect at the back.

right, my problem was that it wasn't so much good attacking as poor defending in my eyes. so you get flashes but they are kind of easy. no real glory.

re: messi/di maria. yes di maria's shot to the goalpost is what enabled messi's first goal, and the man does run, but after sabella took out messi, di maria was tired and couldn't run much.

btw, sabella himself has publicly recognized some of this. check it out:
http://www.goal.com/en-gb/news/3841/...-messi-sabella

rojo as you said earlier is more winger than defender. while he scored, how do you judge him on defense? i wasn't paying 100% attention so i didn't observe him closely.

my dissatisfaction i suppose has more to do with the fact that i expected argentina to be much better. they qualified #1 in conmebol, and they ought to "represent" a little better, and if you take out messi's goals there is very little production. same as brazil without neymar.

in that regard i think chile and colombia have done much better. sure, they have their indispensables, but they are also more of a "team" proper and they have made a good impression-- no?