Argentina into the World Cup quater-finals – but we still don’t know if they are any good or not – The Warm-Up

SUNDAY’S BIG STORIES

King Lionel

Yesterday wasn’t just the beginning of the knockout stages of Qatar 2022. It was also a clash of ideologies, a test of the very nature of sport. Two traditional giants of world football took on two nations that are, fundamentally, very good at PE. History on one side, per capita aerobic capacity on the other. And tradition triumphed, five goals to two.

So that’s one of the big questions answered. But the other big question, the nagging problem of this whole group stage, remains as outstanding this morning as it was last night. Are Argentina actually any good? We still don’t know.

They are, we can probably say, good enough. World Cups have been won by teams with one genius and ten players to carry that genius. World Cups have been won by Argentina with just that particular plan, and we mean that as no insult to everybody else that got a winners’ medal in 1986. When you’ve got a Maradona you give it to Maradona. And when you’ve got a Messi, then even the pluckiest of opposition stand to get their hearts broken. By our reckoning, the opening goal against Australia was the first time all evening Messi had taken the ball into the opposition box. He doesn’t need much. Half a sniff, if that.

And yet. Argentina’s first came thanks to their resident genius, and their second from an Australian brainfade of calamitous proportions. That should have been that. At two goals up against a willing but limited opposition, the big team playbook reads: keep the ball and kill the game. Argentina proved totally unable to do the former, which meant the game remained stubbornly alive. Then came a big deflection to slash the lead. And then came missed chances at both ends. Aziz Behich nearly scored the greatest, funniest goal in World Cup history, a delirious rip-off of Maradona’s second against England, agonisingly blocked at the last. Emi Martínez made a magnificent save in the last minutes of injury time. None of this should have been happening.

But weirdly, even as Argentina were flirting with disaster, they were also playing very nicely indeed. Messi was wonderful after the break, as everything went weird around him; only the miserable finishing of his colleagues kept the game alive. It was as if Argentina had heard the score backwards: they went two-nil up, then started playing as if they were two behind. Great television. Abysmal game management. Delicious World Cup.

That’s four games of Argentina now, and if you put a gun to our head and said “Will they win the World Cup?” we’d probably say “What?! What are you doing? Where did you get a gun?! Oh no, please, please, no, we’ve got so much to live for.” And then when you reassured us that it was simply a rhetorical device, we’d have a bit of a cry. And then we’d say “… maybe?”

Still, we saw enough from Messi – scoring the goal when nothing was happening, then dancing up to something like his best as it all threatened to fall apart – to be assured that he is here to win it. And that, for Argentina, has to be the first step. It might be the only step. And that might be enough.

King Louis

In the earlier game, things were a little more predictable, as Louis van Gaal once again bent football to his will. By the standards of previous Dutch teams, this iteration is light on superstars, light on genius, and light on that kind of existential oranje moodiness that begets either brilliance or pointless violence. But they have a shape and they have a plan. And if you could somehow peer into Van Gaal’s soul, you would see the first goal against the USA shimmering in the metaphysical haze.

When the Dutch began stroking the ball around at the back, the US were settled and comfortable in their defensive shape. Left and right went the ball. Back and forth. Left and right again, back and forth again. Twenty passes later that defensive structure lay in ruins, the midfield absent and the defenders marking everything and nothing, as Memphis arrived unnoticed on the edge of the box to score.

It was an interesting defeat for the USA, one that can be taken a couple of different ways. If you’re feeling generous, you might suggest that the difference between the two teams really boiled down to nothing more than a little sharpness in either box. If Christian Pulisic hadn’t put that early chance into Andries Noppert’s legs; if Sergiño Dest hadn’t fallen asleep in first half injury time. Fine margins. Things that can be worked on. A young team with four years to improve and find a striker.

A less generous interpretation might suggest that these moments are precisely the things that separate good football teams from poor ones. And then go on to suggest that the USA weren’t just out-momented but resoundingly out-tacticked. One goal conceded to an unmarked opponent might be a mistake. Three means a side is being systematically picked apart. We’re not picking a side, but there’s plenty for both the Berhalter Out and Berhalter In crowds to get excited about.

But at least the USA can take comfort that they have taken another big step in their ongoing quest to become a Proper Soccer Nation. Nothing marks a real World Cup campaign out like an ongoing mystery around a side’s best attacking player. Does the coach hate them? Are they hiding a secret injury? Gio Reyna, having played just seven minutes in the group stage, got a whole 45 minutes here, and we still don’t really know the answer.

As for the Netherlands, they go on to face Argentina, in a quarter-final that the experts are calling “potentially dead tasty”. The iron will of Louis van Gaal vs. the last chance of Lionel Messi, with history spooling out behind. Mario Kempes’ brace in a cloud of ticker tape. Dennis Bergkamp’s touch, and Dennis Bergkamp’s goal. Javier Mascherano’s tackle, and Javier Mascherano’s [deleted]. It doesn’t get much more World Cup than this.

IN OTHER NEWS

Look, we get it. It’s the World Cup. The biggest party on the planet demands a constant stream of content, and sometimes it’s difficult to come up with anything new. But not like this, Fox. Not like this.

HAT TIP

The short answer is ‘colonialism’. But the longer answer is worth a look. For example, we hadn’t realised that playing for Suriname actually wasn’t an option for many of those who went on to become Dutch internationals. Once their families had emigrated, “the law forbade [them] from representing [their] birth country.” But Clarence Seedorf’s uncle is clear on what would have happened. “I think he would have made a choice for Suriname. Because of the mentality, in a sense of being certain to be proud of being from Suriname.”

Although, interesting as all this is, we’d also quite like a deep dive into Suriname’s second sport, which according to FA president John Krisnadath is “matches between singing birds. Those things are very, very expensive … They have their methods in counting, in how many rhythms are made. I think if you go to the Independence Square on a Sunday, early in the morning, you will find this there.” Could we have that World Cup after this one?

HAT TIP

“At vast expense (is there another kind?) Qatar sent a team of elite football scouts on a series of people-hunting trips to 15 developing nations, touring villages in their column of SUVs, harvesting children for a Willy Wonka-style golden scholarship to the Aspire school and academy. Between 2007 and 2014 Qatar screened more than 3.5 million 12- and 13-year-old boys. At its height Football Dreams had six thousand staff and volunteers. Out of this mass of hopeful humanity up to 20 Aspire scholarships were awarded each year, pathway to becoming a Champion In Sport or A Champion In Life.”

It sounded odd at the time. And as Ronay notes, looking back, “it seems like a strange and unworkable concept … Actual established professional academies spend years trying and failing to do this with endless monitoring and space to bloom late or fall away. Children are vulnerable beings. Sport is unforgiving. This thing, the footballing equivalent of game-hunting from your open helicopter bay door, was never going to work in any serious fashion.”

So was there something else going on? Well, perhaps. As Ronay notes, “we have a £100m programme that made little practical sense”, which ended up in “a series of locations where football administration is governed by people who are with hindsight tainted by corruption.” And those people all had a say on the success of Qatar’s 2022 World Cup vote.

COMING UP

The big game of the day is, of course, France against Poland, as the world waits to see just what will happen when a team that refuses to play football takes on a team that just can’t. There’s also Senegal against somebody or other, we forget the details.

It’ll be Andi Thomas again tomorrow. Hopefully he works out Senegal are playing before then.