Maradona actually did banish Ramon Diaz from the Argentina team.
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Diego wasn’t too fond of Daniel Passarella either.
He wouldn’t have been alone in that.
Fernando Redondo and Claudio Caniggia walked off the Argentina team, never to return, because of Passarella.
Argentina had the players to win any of the World Cups between 1998 and 2006 but blew it each time.
Fair article by Jonathan Wilson.
Argentina a shambles but Messi not without blame.
I was thinking of a combined USSR team from 2006 to 2008 too - Arshavin & Shevchenko might have been tasty. A combined Czechsolavian team would be weaker than the peak of its powers but maybe still good enough to qualify for the WC.
At club level they’ve all been completely destroyed though. Shaktar have been the only top level Eastern European side for a few seasons now, would that be right?
Yeah, Shakhtar have definitely been the standard bearers for Eastern Europe for a good while now. Dynamo Kiev haven’t done much since they last had a good team in 1999. CSKA Moscow and Zenit St. Petersburg won UEFA Cups in 2005 and 2008 but the Russian league isn’t up to much. Apparently they introduced rule where there had to be a minimum number of Russians on each team and it backfired bith for the club game itself and for the Russian national team.
Much like a combined Yugoslavia, it would be interesting to do up a combined USSR team for this World Cup.
Mikhitaryan would be a cert. Maybe Raggy might get in too.
Those countries don’t have many top or even mid-level European club players though, do they?
messi is a fraud
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Probably had the players to win in 1994 as well.
Great game
Probably had the players to win every World Cup since 1978. Except this time. They probably should have won 2014 but missed two sitters in the first half and in extra-time when it was still 0-0. In 2010 they had a lot of the same problems they have now in terms of having no idea of how to set up the team - Maradona left Cambiasso and Zanetti out of the squad despite them having played central roles in Inter Milan winning the European Cup.
To be honest though this failure is not a surprise. I watched them live several times suring qualifying and they were awful. Friendlies since the World Cup have been a disaster. The manager is hamstrung by the lack of players to play the way he wanted but when he couldn’t do that, he had no fallback and became completely confused about what shape the team should take.
Tim Vickery explains it here.
Tim was on the BBC last night. Said that the standard of World Cup qualifying in South America was the worst in years.
i think it is a bit disingenuous just to discuss last night’s game in the context of how poor Argentina were.
Croatia were excellent, has anyone seen a team as technically good as them in recent memory?
their midfield is outstanding and at the back Loveren, the blondy lad from Besiktas and Vrsalkjo had brilliant games
its remarkable because they lack a traitional striker, id love to see them play with say a Radamal Falcao character up there but in Mandzukic you almost have the antithesis to Modric et al in the sense he appears to be a big lumbering ox of a man but that is what adds even more to the intrigue
Modric had a wonderful game last night as did the two lads from inter Perisic and Brozavic
It got right dirty at times also out there and i think they thrived on it
They could win the tournament, BUT i wonder if their lack of an out and out goalscorer may impact them
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there was a great bit on that James Richardson podcast about modric now being hated by a lot of croats.
other points to note
@Nembo_Kid was right about messi
Russia has now scored as many goals in this world cup as spain did in the 2010 world cup. @Nembo_Kid was right about spain being horrible to watch
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The problem is Messi is not a great player and they place too much of an emphasis on a bottler. Time for Argentina to ditch him and see how Dybala gets on.
@Nembo_Kid called it very badly on Messi in the 2014 World Cup. Messi won the Player of the Tournament award in 2014.
why was Icardi not playing @Nembo_Kid?
it looks to me that the three best players in the world currently are all at Inter, Perisic, Brozaevic and Icardi .
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John Kenny’s World Cup travel itinerary so far:
Dublin to Kazan: 4,305km
Kazan to Samara: 359km
Samara to Sochi: 1,775km
Sochi to Moscow: 1.624km
Moscow to Kazan: 1,050km
Combined distance: 9,113km
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I believe Messi didn’t want him there.
Why do they hate him?
Bringing in Brozavic and thus pushing modric forward to the middle of the three was the key for this game. That also dropped the waster krammeric which was an added bonus.
The locals are over the moon.
And have absolutely no sympathy for kalinic who is another waster.
They could well play Denmark next so have a good chance of making the quarters. After that it will get more awkward.