Oh my lord and beyond. Messi scores a few goals and he suddenly carries a team. He practically done nothing in most games and scored the odd goal. What did he do in the knockout stages apart from that goal vs Swiss?
Argentina 2-1 Bosnia: Messi sends in a dangerous free kick that Kolasinac can only put into his own net, before hitting an 18 yarder in off the post. He has, in all senses, carried the team through this match.
Argentina 1-0 Iran: The entire team does **** all. Messi finally says '**** it' and scores an absolute pearler. Without Messi, they draw at best.
Nigeria 2-3 Argentina: Goalfest. Argentina can't defend the long ball to a pacey striker, with Mascherano entirely nullified by the Nigerians bypassing him. Messi scores two and puts in the corner which Rojo scores from. He doesn't play, they lose.
Argentina 1-0 Switzerland: Messi provides the extra-time dribble and defence-splitting pass the Di Maria slots home. If you're keeping count, this is the fourth game Messi has provided game-winning goals or assists.
Argentina 1-0 Belgium: The first game in which Messi doesn't effect the result directly, but he still puts in a superlative performance, giving the entire Belgian team the runaround. ****, he was even involved in the build up to the goal after beating two players and giving it to Di Maria to pass to Higuain.
Netherlands 0-0 Argentina, ARG win on pens: Marked by De Jong constantly and the rest of the midfield sporadically, Messi pulls around the opposition due to being double and triple marked. The rest of the attack do **** all. Mascherano is magnificent in a game suited to him.
Germany 1-0 Argentina: Messi is his team's only attacking outlet. Higuain was awful, Aguero useless.
Seriously. You have to be ******* retarded to not think Messi carried his team.
In what way is this Argentina side being carried by and sub-par? They have loads of good players. Aguero, Higuain, Di Maria, Garay, Enzo Perez (over the last few seasons has really come on), Palacio, Biglia, Mascherano, Zabaleta.
Cool, and how many of them actually played well? Aguero was bollocks all tournament, Higuain did nothing other than his excellent goal against Belgium, Di Maria played alternately very well and terribly, Garay was good but nothing more, Enzo Perez wasn't even used until Di Maria got injured, Palacio was hardly used (and wasn't good when he was), Biglia shouldn't have been played ahead of Gago but did okay, Mascherano had a good tournament like I said, and Zabaleta was his usual consistent self.
You're a fool if you think a group of talented individuals equals a very good team. Just look at Spain: they had Casillas, Pique, Alba, Azpilicueta, Fabregas, Xavi, Iniesta, Diego Costa and so on and so forth. Doesn't mean they were good. Much like this Argentina side, they were much less than the sum of their parts.
Some of them alone are world-class and others of them are just ****** great players! Can we not over-hype the situation about Messi carrying this team, thank you very much, it isn't below par either, it's a very good team with very good players mostly.
No. Just try and tell me this team would've made it past the group stages without Messi. Go and look at the results, watch the matches, look at Messi pulling his team from the depths time and again, and tell me this team is legitimately the second best in the entire competition.
lol.