Argentina 4-0 Peru: ROMAN leads 2nd half party

At moments it seems Argentina is just moving the ball around, knowing that, eventually, the first goal will come...and with that, many will follow.

And boy that do happen!

It was like that against the USA and Colombia (both times coming back from a goal down) and it happened tonight against Peru in our way to the semifinals.

Argentina was so much in control of every game we played so far that sometimes it gets boring. Not being arrogant here. I don't know if that's a compliment for a team. But I don't know if you can criticize that as an strategy. Argentina seems to make the ball run, while our rivals run after it, making all the effort and wasting a lot of energy.

The amount of weapons we have, enables COCO to use the bench players when the other team is having a hard time to breath. So far, it paid off big time.

Tonight we had a very different game both sides of half time. With Diego MILITO playing CRESPO's role, we struggled to cause problems to the Peruvian back line. In my opinion that is not solely because of Diego playing a bad game. He touched very few balls as it didn't seem to get to him.

Peru ran a lot during those first 45 minutes and we were only close to scoring through a couple of MESSI's individual tricks (one hitting the post).

The rest of the first half was lethargic. Personally, I didn't like the way our defense played. All except for ZANETTI had some rough moments and it makes me wonder what will happen the day we face a Nery CASTILLO, a ROBINHO or even a Diego FORLAN...

I won't go on and on talking about each player's performance as the players' ratings will follow shortly.

Second half. Second life.

Carlitos in to replace Diego MILITO and boy did that substitution paid off!

Within two minutes they combined with ROMAN and the three-times Copa Libertadores champion with Boca gave the keeper no chance.

Let me tell you...ROMAN with his left foot (not his favorite) can shoot better than a huge percentage of the World's footballers population with their best foot! That's a FACT!

So we know ROMAN can shoot, but we also know he loves to pass the ball around. So every kid out there, watching the game tonight, should have opened his eyes and seen that neat assist to a wide open Lionel MESSI.

Those are the kind of passes that even a smaller percentage of the footballers in this World can even dream of making! Then we all knew MESSI was bound to score. No mistake, lovely touch between the keepers leg. 2-0.

TEVEZ again, very active and causing Peru all sorts of problems, broke through on the left and instead of shooting, gave it to a better-positioned Lionel MESSI who was unlucky not to score.

But all the luck in the World is property of Javier MASCHERANO these days as he found the rebound and punished Peru to score his second international goal, only a few days after scoring his first. RAFA, are you watching? You paid all those millions to buy EL NIÑO when you have a goal-scoring machine in MASCHE! hahaha! Shame on you!

I was laughing when I saw PATO trying to catch butterflies. It was hilarious (it would have been a horror film if he did that when we were 0-0!). He went to the air and couldn't get the ball. So then he punched it away and that damned spheric thing wouldn't go out of bounds. With no other solution left but to chase the ball outside the area, PATO sent a desperate ball upfield and it turned out to be a lovely long pass to CARLITOS.

The soon-to-be Manchester United forward then went past a defender and leading a 3-against-1 move, saw RIQUELME running free coming from the middle and sent him a perfect pass for ROMAN to deliver.

COCO's first choice team have now played 3 games and score 4 goals in each one. That helps our manager to a record of 17 undefeated games in his history at the Copa America.

Mexico is next.

No extra-time and no Maxi RODRIGUEZ for us. But somehow, I'm not scared.

The ball will always be with us.