World Cup Thoughts

Germany-Argentina was a weird match. Argentina was a much better team, but it seemed to me, they put themselves into the least-advantageous position to win the game...not purposefully or incompetently, but in a sort of Prisoner's Dilemma rational choice matrix which led them to the least desirable outcome.

The problem with Argentina is that they have 4 good strikers, all with different skills and experience. Each game, they can only start two of them and sub in one or two if need be. Usually they start Saviola and Crespo. Saviola is a creative, tricky, dangerous, player and Crespo is a finishing machine without much creativity, but a lot of toughness. Then on the bench they generally have two youngsters, Messier and Tevez. Messier, a lightinng quick playmaker, a pleasure to watch and Tevez, a street tough, hard nosed, deceptively creative attacker. All four are great players. Crespo usually manages to find a way to score when Argentina plays.

Clearly, Argentina wanted to play Germany aggressively, so they decided to start Tevez, one of their younger stars. Sadly, they benched Saviola, I think because they couldn't logically not start Crespo because of the sheer number of goals he scores (despite being the weakest player of the 4). But it is these types of games which reveal weakness and Crespo was pretty ineffective. If they had to do it over again, maybe Saviola and Tevez. I don't know.


But in any case, with Argentina up 1-0 and about 20 minutes left to play, logic dictates they should lock the game down and play tough defense to take home the victory. (Note, this logic often backfires in soccer). Also note, Argentina needed to use one of their subs for their injured goalie, something they obviously did not plan upon strategically. In their decision to lock down the game, they subbed in a player I did not know up front, Cruz. Obviously a defensive choice.

They also subbed Riquelme. I'm still not sure why. I think Riquelme was the most overrated player in the tournament. He is graceful on the ball, no doubt, but for a center mid he gives the ball away A LOT, and I wasn't impressed with his ability to win the ball in the middle. He is the type of player who looks incredible against bad teams, and weak against good teams. Germany handled him and I venture to guess than any really good midfielders from around the world would do the same. I'd take Gerrard or Lampard, Essie or Appia, Zidane or Viera, Rozicky, Ballack, and frankly any of the Italian center mids over him. I guess it was a defensive substitution because the Argentine coach knows what I suspect. Still, I'm not sure if it was a wise sub, because now, Argentina has made 2 defensive subsititions. Anyhow, it was logical, but not necessarily smart. And despite Riquelme being overrated, I'm sure he's a better player than whoever Argentina subbed for him.

And of course, Germany equalized and now Argentina is in the position of needing a goal - either in overtime and in penalty kicks and they have 4 of their 5 most dangerous offensive players on the bench (Riquelme, Crespo, Saviola, and Messier). They don't even play their arguably two most dangerous players - Saviola and Messier.

And then they still play pretty well and had a few opportunities.

Like I said, weird game.