World Cup Qualifiers (CONMEBOL) October 5th and October 10th

[Guest]

Fair play to Brazil for going out and look for the game in La Paz. Before, it was usually a feared moment for the Brazilians to go up to that altitude. Here they played as if it were nothing. Great point for La Selecao.

[Guest]

Uruguay boring as usual. 0-0.

Now the big one: Argentina vs Peru!

[Guest]

Our lineup.

[Guest]

Absolutely love this. Graphic of Pedro Aquino for Lobos BUAP with Edison Flores completely photobombing it by celebrating in the back 

 

[El Profesor]

First time in Messi´s career he plays at a stadium with a great home atmopshere.  Much better than the Camp Nou theater.

[Guest]

Peru's left side of the pitch is marvellous. Trauco, Flores and Yotun. What players they are.

Farfan and Corzo the 2 worst of the pitch. Argentina aside from Messi and Gomez have been useless with their possession. Although Araujo and Rodriguez have been impeccable at the back.

Guerrero not having one of his top games but when 3 men are marking you, he's doing his job. Holding the ball up for a decent amount of time to have everyone go up and attack.

[El Profesor]

Wow, Argentina starting really well the 2nd half. Nice save by the peruvian goalkeeper right after a Messi shot hit the post.

[Cicero]

Benedetto is the definition of wasteful 

[Guest]

I'm not happy with that result at all.

3 losses in 20 but I honestly think the plan today has backfired. Paraguay has won in Colombia and now we have to play Colombia who have yet to qualify. I'm not confident.

 

[Dan+]

That was so tense. Argentina are awful! There's no imagination in their play what so ever. Just chip it into the box every time.

How can a side with that much attacking quality look so toothless?

Peru have a proper chance of getting in now. The England, Peru, Mexico and whoever group is on. This place would be hilarious.

[El Profesor]

lol Paraguay will probably qualify. They wil, host Venezuela at home.

[Cicero]

Credit where it's due, Peru played a disciplined game. 

Paraguay beating Colombia basically giving Argentina a life line, but do they really deserve it? Truly embarrassing from them with the chances they've missed and another God awful performance from Di Maria and Benedetto. Both of which should never make another appearance again. 

Ecuador or bust. Literally. 

[Guest]

1 minute ago, El_Loco said:

lol Paraguay will probably qualify. They wil, host Venezuela at home.

I'm not putting any money on them. Venezuela have nothing to play for, but since the 2-2 draw against Brazil in Asuncion they've been awful at home.

I honestly don't want to make predictions for the last match, but I'm not going to say that we're going to Russia. If we win, its a done deal. Its a matter of IF we win.

2 minutes ago, Dan said:

That was so tense. Argentina are awful! There's no imagination in their play what so ever. Just chip it into the box every time.

How can a side with that much attacking quality look so toothless?

Peru have a proper chance of getting in now. The England, Peru, Mexico and whoever group is on. This place would be hilarious.

Argentina were awful in attack, but our 2 center halves were excellent. Alberto Rodriguez was great as usual. Miguel Araujo was spot on.

[El Profesor]

3 minutes ago, Blue said:

I'm not happy with that result at all.

3 losses in 20 but I honestly think the plan today has backfired. Paraguay has won in Colombia and now we have to play Colombia who have yet to qualify. I'm not confident.

 

The fact that Colombia blew it up doesn´t make it less impressive the fact that you´ve managed to hold Argentina at La Bombonera. Like I mentioned earlier, I was afraid you´d crumble under pressure but you showed a lot of resilience. Congrats and good luck against Colombia.

[Cicero]

3 minutes ago, El_Loco said:

The fact that Colombia blew it up doesn´t make it less impressive the fact that you´ve managed to hold Argentina at La Bombonera. Like I mentioned earlier, I was afraid you´d crumble under pressure but you showed a lot of resilience. Congrats and good luck against Colombia.

Replace Benedetto with a proper striker and Argentina would of won this game 2 or 3-0. Unbelievable a professional footballer missed the chances he had. 

Either you fucking play Icardi or look like a fool for not calling up Higauin. 

[El Profesor]

2 minutes ago, Blue said:

I'm not putting any money on them. Venezuela have nothing to play for, but since the 2-2 draw against Brazil in Asuncion they've been awful at home.

 

Against Venezuela, at Defensores del Chaco and needing the win to qualify? I think Paraguay wins it.

[Guest]

Just now, El_Loco said:

The fact that Colombia blew it up doesn´t make it less impressive the fact that you´ve managed to hold Argentina at La Bombonera. Like I mentioned earlier, I was afraid you´d crumble under pressure but you showed a lot of resilience. Congrats and good luck against Colombia.

We could have won it too. Excellent reaction by Sergio Romero at the end to stop Paolo Guerrero's free kick. That was going in.

Unfortunately, it would have been undeserved if we won. We were awful for our standards. Defensively it was actually not as impressive as usual. The 2 center halves were excellent, as was Miguel Trauco but Aldo Corzo was sub par. Still a very good defensive performance mind, it did hold them for 90 minutes.

Offensively, it showed how much we missed Cueva and Carrillo. Farfan has lost so much pace, its unreal. If we had those 2 I would have actually had more confidence in creating more chances.

Now - it was clear Gareca went out for the draw. He got what he wanted. Unfortunately, Colombia lost and now the home match will be annoyingly difficult. Thankfully, we are better than them but they are still a good team. If it was the 2014 qualifiers, I would have been counting us out.

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, El_Loco said:

Against Venezuela, at Defensores del Chaco and needing the win to qualify? I think Paraguay wins it.

I say draw.

Venezuela won there in the last qualifiers. I feel their style is better suited for away matches.

When we played in Asuncion, it was possibly the easiest win in the qualifiers. Its a match that I can see go either way.

[El Profesor]

3 minutes ago, Cicero said:

Replace Benedetto with a proper striker and Argentina would of won this game 2 or 3-0. Unbelievable a professional footballer missed the chances he had. 

Either you fucking play Icardi or look like a fool for not calling up Higauin. 

I think Sampaoli started Benedetto because the match was at La Bombonera. Still, the fact that neither Dybala nor Icardi didn´t play a single minute of that match when Argentina needed a goal is baffling.

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, Cicero said:

Replace Benedetto with a proper striker and Argentina would of won this game 2 or 3-0. Unbelievable a professional footballer missed the chances he had. 

Either you fucking play Icardi or look like a fool for not calling up Higauin. 

The problem was not having Higuain or Dybala. Higuain would have buried those chances. Either way, 9 of our 11 players were calm and handled the pressure well.

If Colombia had won I would have been completely confident - unfortunately that is not the case.

[Cicero]

Just now, Blue said:

We could have won it too. Excellent reaction by Sergio Romero at the end to stop Paolo Guerrero's free kick. That was going in.

Unfortunately, it would have been undeserved if we won. We were awful for our standards. Defensively it was actually not as impressive as usual. The 2 center halves were excellent, as was Miguel Trauco but Aldo Corzo was sub par. Still a very good defensive performance mind, it did hold them for 90 minutes.

Offensively, it showed how much we missed Cueva and Carrillo. Farfan has lost so much pace, its unreal. If we had those 2 I would have actually had more confidence in creating more chances.

Now - it was clear Gareca went out for the draw. He got what he wanted. Unfortunately, Colombia lost and now the home match will be annoyingly difficult. Thankfully, we are better than them but they are still a good team. If it was the 2014 qualifiers, I would have been counting us out.

 Hypothetically speaking, that would mean Argentina were wasteful, and you weren't? The point of the game is to outscore your opponent. So then why wouldn't you deserve it? 

This embarrassment of an Argentina team are getting lifeline after lifeline. Colombia losing tonight was huge for them, meaning if they beat Ecuador, and that's a big fucking IF, they are en route to qualify, either via playoff or automatic qualification. 

Sampaoli is looking like a massive fool at the moment. I defended him when he selected Icardi ahead of Higauin due to style of play, but if you don't even fucking play him when he was preferred over Argentina's best #9, you look like a tit and will be public enemy number one should you not qualify. Especially when you play trash like Benedetto, who makes current Torres look like a lethal finisher. 

 

[Burning Gold]

28 minutes ago, Dan said:

That was so tense. Argentina are awful! There's no imagination in their play what so ever. Just chip it into the box every time.

How can a side with that much attacking quality look so toothless?

Peru have a proper chance of getting in now. The England, Peru, Mexico and whoever group is on. This place would be hilarious.

For future reference, how were you watching this? Was it on TV over here?

[Guest]

18 minutes ago, Cicero said:

 Hypothetically speaking, that would mean Argentina were wasteful, and you weren't? The point of the game is to outscore your opponent. So then why wouldn't you deserve it? 

This embarrassment of an Argentina team are getting lifeline after lifeline. Colombia losing tonight was huge for them, meaning if they beat Ecuador, and that's a big fucking IF, they are en route to qualify, either via playoff or automatic qualification. 

Sampaoli is looking like a massive fool at the moment. I defended him when he selected Icardi ahead of Higauin due to style of play, but if you don't even fucking play him when he was preferred over Argentina's best #9, you look like a tit and will be public enemy number one should you not qualify. Especially when you play trash like Benedetto, who makes current Torres look like a lethal finisher. 

 

I was convinced Argentina would draw with Ecuador before someone reminded me that Antonio Valencia is Argentina's biggest nightmare. He will slaughter those full backs. He did in Buenos Aires on the first matchday, and he can do it again. The bright side for Argentina is that Ecuador will be demoralized.

Sampaoli is a great manager, but his big problem was simple - taking the Argentina job at this stage. He's made some bizarre call ups but he's had no friendlies and has had no room for error. He has no time at all to work his magic. If Argentina miss out on the world cup, I'd keep him at least until the Copa America.

As for your first question - Gallese made some outstanding saves and the 2 center backs were great. I was surprised how poor the attackers were. Without Cueva and Carrillo we really missed the tiki taka play we were so good at. All in all, this was a valuable point but I didn't like what I saw for the most part.

[El Profesor]

Just saw the 2 paraguayan goals, man, Ospina was terrible. Failed in both goals. 

 

Per @PCarrESPN:  

[Guest]

The second best goalkeeper in the world 

This week will be the longest of my life. If there is one thing that relaxes me its that the Colombians don't seem confident in beating us.