Albiceleste's defense appreaciation thread

[DAF86]

It's the answer as to why they aren't making so many goals.

[Manu'sMagicalLeftHand]

I've read a lot of people complainning on the internet "but Argentina don't go all out attack" .

Well, they did go all-out attack in 2002, 2006 and 2010 and we know how those ended. Heck, the 1998 Bergkamp goal came from a counter attack where the defensive assigments were missed. And in 1994 frickin' Romania got the best of a defensive line playing high-up the pitch.

International football is very different from club. Managers have shorter periods of time to gel the team, most compe ions it's one defeat and you're packing your bags. Can anyone actually claim the last 3 World Cup winners played to attack? They were comfortable sitting with a strong defense, a well-organized midfield and let the attacking players take their chances. Italy '06 defended without the ball, Spain 2010 with it -passing it to boredom-, Brazil '02 had a core of 7 players marking tight and let the others work their magic.

Yesterday's match was boring for the neutral because Holland's style is to break play with pressure to get quick ball to Robben and leave him 1-on-1 with a defender. And if they fail, commit tactical fouls. But Argentina saw this, never gave the Dutch space to operate and were conservative with the passes.

[diego]

Not sure Argentina has played an offensive team yet

- Worst Group
- Swizz
- Belgium: struggled scoring in Group State, couldn't put the ball in net versus USA for 90 minutes
- Netherlands: Took 90+ minutes to score against Mexico. Couldn't score in 120 minutes versus Costa Rica

no argentina hasnt faced an offensive team, because bosnia, iran, swiss and belgium (who were group seeds thanks to the terrible fifa ranking system and uefa qualy format europe) pissed their pants in fear of messi, while holland just always plays like that.

[diego]

I've read a lot of people complainning on the internet "but Argentina don't go all out attack" .

Well, they did go all-out attack in 2002, 2006 and 2010 and we know how those ended. Heck, the 1998 Bergkamp goal came from a counter attack where the defensive assigments were missed. And in 1994 frickin' Romania got the best of a defensive line playing high-up the pitch.

International football is very different from club. Managers have shorter periods of time to gel the team, most compe ions it's one defeat and you're packing your bags. Can anyone actually claim the last 3 World Cup winners played to attack? They were comfortable sitting with a strong defense, a well-organized midfield and let the attacking players take their chances. Italy '06 defended without the ball, Spain 2010 with it -passing it to boredom-, Brazil '02 had a core of 7 players marking tight and let the others work their magic.

Yesterday's match was boring for the neutral because Holland's style is to break play with pressure to get quick ball to Robben and leave him 1-on-1 with a defender. And if they fail, commit tactical fouls. But Argentina saw this, never gave the Dutch space to operate and were conservative with the passes.

not sure I agree. For one the criticism of argentina "not going all out" is stupid, just look at the roster and youll see that thats actually all we've got! argentina does attack though, and in all of their games created more chances than their opponent . It would be nice if they were scoring more but the problem is not that they havent attacked, theyve just not been very effective at it.

as for 02, 06, there i disagree completely, the 02 team was an attacking team but it had good defenders, that team lost because bielsa played batistuta instead of crespo and we scored 2 goals and gave 2 away to be eliminated. the way that team was playing in the qualifiers/run up to the WC with crespo we should have scored at least 1 a game, the problem was not enough offense. The 06 team had riquelme and pekerman and was very judicious with the ball, just because they beat serbia 6-1 doesnt mean they were an all out attacking team. they lost in penalties a game they controlled for 75 minutes (around where pekerman took riquelme out for i think cambiasso who missed his penalty to boot). That was bad coaching/luck (abbondanzieri injury cost a sub and he sucked). the '10 team is the closest you can say to an all out attack team, but its easy to be all attack when you have terrible D- germany opened the game with a set piece goal, not a counter. I would much prefer argentina play more attack, its our biggest strength, but i understand why sabella plays it safe with this roster. history does show its easier to win being defensive, i guess i just disagree with the assessment of those teams losing because they were too risky, if anything they werent risky enough.

[Manu'sMagicalLeftHand]

not sure I agree. For one the criticism of argentina "not going all out" is stupid, just look at the roster and youll see that thats actually all we've got! argentina does attack though, and in all of their games created more chances than their opponent . It would be nice if they were scoring more but the problem is not that they havent attacked, theyve just not been very effective at it.

as for 02, 06, there i disagree completely, the 02 team was an attacking team but it had good defenders, that team lost because bielsa played batistuta instead of crespo and we scored 2 goals and gave 2 away to be eliminated. the way that team was playing in the qualifiers/run up to the WC with crespo we should have scored at least 1 a game, the problem was not enough offense. The 06 team had riquelme and pekerman and was very judicious with the ball, just because they beat serbia 6-1 doesnt mean they were an all out attacking team. they lost in penalties a game they controlled for 75 minutes (around where pekerman took riquelme out for i think cambiasso who missed his penalty to boot). That was bad coaching/luck (abbondanzieri injury cost a sub and he sucked). the '10 team is the closest you can say to an all out attack team, but its easy to be all attack when you have terrible D- germany opened the game with a set piece goal, not a counter. I would much prefer argentina play more attack, its our biggest strength, but i understand why sabella plays it safe with this roster. history does show its easier to win being defensive, i guess i just disagree with the assessment of those teams losing because they were too risky, if anything they werent risky enough.

The 2002 team was probably the most offensive team in modern football before Barcelona. They pressed, pressed and pressed high up the pitch, but the players had to be talked into it by Bielsa, it was not the way they learnt to play or the way they were playing in most of their European clubs. The difficulties came when the players arrived into the World Cup absolutely exhausted after a long season (the World Cup started earlier to avoid the monsoon season in Asia) and so the pressing was very chaotic, leaving gaps in midfield. Also that team insisted too much on going down the flanks and finishing the attacking moves with 6 players in the opposition's penalty area. But the crossers weren't good (ditto Piojo Lopez crossing into the opposite throw-in line), and the team had only a few good finishers, Sorin and co. got the chances but wasted them. Even so, they were very unlucky and missed a plethora of chances vs England and Sweden. If you watch again the games vs. England and Sweden, both teams waited in their own halves and tried to play long passes into the space behind the 8,5 and 11. There their forwards went 1 on 1 with the defenders or created fouls. It also didn't help that the backbone of that defense, Ayala, got injured while warming up for the Nigeria game and missed the 3 games. That team didn't have any superstars on Messi's level. It had some very good players (Batistuta, Verón, Ayala), and many good role players, but the drop down in some positions or to the subsi utes was huge. Piojo Lopez, Placente, Husain, Chamot, heck even 70 year old Caniggia was selected.

The 2006 team played the most "Argentinian" of them all. Ball control, ball in feet, short passing, 4 in the back, a traditional #10. But they crumbled after the group stage. The problems were many: placing the entire creation and ball control on Riquelme, who was always a TOSB and is very good for South American football, but he never proved himself in the global stages and is mentally very fragile. Pekerman didn't chose traditional full backs, except for Sorin, he left Zanetti out: slow Cufré, Coloccini and such played in RB. Then he made his blunder in subs utions vs. Germany. But if you remember that Cup, Argentina was the most attacking team by far. The rest were playing very cautious. People complain about 2014 knockout stages, I'd recommend them to watch again the 2006 games and will find the current Cup is much more entertaining, even in 0-0 games.

The 2010 team was a disaster waiting to happen, but an entertaining one. The AFA handed the keys of a Ferrari to a drunk driver. It was obvious from the qualification process, the bizarre friendlies, the selection policy, the non-existing tactical decisions that it was a trainwreck in the making. The team pretty much won 3 games based on the players qualities, but the entire second half of the Mexico match should've shown the warning signs, if the coaching staff weren't a bunch of cokeheads. Worst of all, they wasted 2010 Messi, an absolute beast, with such coaching. Playing Otamendi, Jonas Gutierrez and Heinze as full backs, Garcé as replacement, going for 4-1-5 formation vs. Germany, completely abandoning the tactical side and resting the entire game plan into motivation. It baffles me even more that Maradona now has the nerve to critize Sabella and plaudits himself as some sort of managing genious, when the weight of all the that happened during the period he was in charge is all on him.

[Infinite_limit]

no argentina hasnt faced an offensive team, because bosnia, iran, swiss and belgium (who were group seeds thanks to the terrible fifa ranking system and uefa qualy format europe) pissed their pants in fear of messi, while holland just always plays like that.

Huh. Belgium was arguably the best defensive team in the Tournament.

I understand that can be difficult for an Argentinian to comprehend given your region plays No Defense