Monday, February 02, 2009

Argentina in danger of missing out of Youth WC

To make a long story short, it could be said that Argentina lost 2-0 to Brazil and now BATISTA's boys are in danger of missing out of the FIFA Youth World Cup Egypt 2009.

It would be unwise to ignore the fact that the match was played under awful weather and pitch conditions, but that is by no means an excuse. The waterlogged pitch and the heavy rain where there for both teams.

Argentina got really unlucky in the first half when the linesman raised his flag for a non-existent offside position when Cristian GAITÁN sent the ball home with a fine header.

Brazil scored twice in the second half, through Alan KARDEC and GIULIANO. Now they have 6 points in this final round and are very close from qualifying for the Youth World Cup.

Key midfielder, Franco ZUCULINI, saw the red card after a brawl between several players from both sides. PATRIC, from Brazil, was the other player sent off.

Argentina will need to improve and start winning (1 win, 4 draws and 1 defeat in this tournament). Next up will be the dangerous Uruguayans on Wednesday (the best team in the first round, but now struggling after losing to Brazil and -as I'm writing this- trailing Colombia in their two final round matches). Friday will be our showdown with Venezuela and we finally close with a match against Colombia on Sunday.

In case you don't know, four teams out of the six that qualified for this final round will secure their tickets to the Youth World Cup. Every team will face each other and qualification will be decided by points.

So far:

Brazil 6 pts
Colombia 4 pts (leading Uruguay 1-0. Still in second half)
Paraguay 1 pt
Venezuela 1 pt (Paraguay and Venezuela will play very late on Monday).
Argentina 1 pt 2 matches
Uruguay 0 pt

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have been saying this since the tourney and this is one of the weakest sides put out. Yes missing a few players here and there but you are right no excuses. 1 point in 2 games which means DANGER ZONE. And it does not get any easier when they play Uruguay next.

Jack!

John said...

To be more precise Jack, we are weak at the back. Yes we do score at will and concede at the same time. That's not good at all.

Anonymous said...

i'm sorry, but that game was won for Brazil by the officials not by the players. We were better than them throughout the game.
It was never an offside nor was it a penalty for Brazil, the officials spoilt the game totally. I'm sure we will still qualify though.

day1star