But then mate we've hardly seen any 'great/spectacular' performances this time around. Germany have easily been the best. After that?
Spain? Holland? England ( )? Brazil? ( Don't mind. )
No. Atleast Argentina have been among the goals- second highest I think.
It was common knowledge since the beginning that their defense was sh*te.
And Maradona was never going to be a classy coach. As I said myself, he didn't use the players at his disposal fully, be it leaving Cambiasso out or leaving Aguero on the bench.
And if you are seeing their 2006 performances, see ALL the matches. 6-0 was only 1 match. I don't remember them being much better against Ivory Coast, Netherlands or Mexico last time around than they were now.
And when you say "look at their wins and how they happened"... well in that sense you can undermine each victory. There's always something in a match that you could say "this thing went their way and shifted the result in their favour". Doesn't work like that.
They got good results, credit where its due. ( No Mr. Maradona not you! )
Yeah, they got the results... so did Uruguay, World Cup semifinalists. Are they one of the 4 best teams in the world? Hell, no. They were lucky to be in the group of the worst "big" team (France), then lucky again to face South Korea and Ghana in the knockout stage (had a hard time against all of them, too!).
I'm not saying Argentina were great in 2006, but in terms of results, it was exactly the same of 2010. Quarter finalists, knocked out by Germany (not 4-0, but in penalties). But they showed better team work with a worse squad. And what about comparing Ivory Coast and Netherlands to South Korea and Greece?
I give no credit to Maradona cause there's nothing in this Argentine team that look like his personal work. There's no system, no real tactics, they're only there thanks to their individual talents. He's got the best player in the world and can't even make him perform like he does in club level.
Any coach in the world should be able to beat Nigeria, South Korea, Greece and Mexico with that squad. A squad which could be way better if he was a better coach, too. But still he needed the help of the referee to win 3 of these matches. It does work like that, cause if we're only talking in terms of results, then Brazil's 2002 and 1970 squads are just as good. Champions winning all their games.
They scored only 1 single goal more than "boring" Brazil, by the way.
Argentina scored 10 goals, 2 offside and one after a foul in the Nigerian defender. There was an own goal too. Brazil scored 9, one was illegal cause Luis Fabiano used his arm.
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