Uruguay 0-1 Argentina - Player ratings by Dave P

Apologies for the delay. I got a call one hour after the game and had to leave everything. Only to return at 4 AM!

Here are Dave P's player ratings.

We are in South Africa, baby!

Good victory tonight we pushed through it, here are my ratings...

Annnnndddd we are through. Great feeling right now after all the stress that Maradona and the NT has put us through for the past half year. What a game as well, it was a completely different feel and tactic then against Peru. It seemed as if we were a different team.

The 4 CB back defensive line ended up working well. What we needed was a tie to be guaranteed fifth place, and we got the goal and the 3 points to get the direct route with style, even though we had no style tonight. It was very much a bump and grind match, players were working and hustling hard only to be fouled every other minute. Possession was given back and forth for the first 30 minutes and then we eventually
settled down and held onto nice possession of the ball for last 15 minutes, which carried over into the second. We didn’t have much attack for the entire game; actually we had not attack, partially because Veron was playing deep in the midfield unlike Aimar who pushed up. But he did settle the game well. Anyway we got the win through gritty play by all our players. The defense was excellent tonight, amazing defensive display of tackling and marking from Demichelis and Mascherano both. 2 wins in a row?? Definitely not by the style of play that the media and Argentine fans like to see, but I don’t care if that’s the style of play that gets the victory that sounds good to me.

Ok here are the ratings…

ROMERO (7.5): Great game for our young super goalkeeper talent. Always quick to react to deflections and reads the game well. In the first 10 mins there was a counter attack by Uruguay and Shciavi was out of position, Romero was quick to pounce out of the box and distinguish the threat and safe us. On set pieces was very quick in the air and truly was confident in everything that he did. In the last 5 mins there was a corner kick, where Romero soared above 15 players to grab the ball out of the air in triumphant fashion. Great player.

OTAMENDI (5.5): Very slow to begin the game, was caught out of position and any attack Uruguay had in the first half was done on his side. As the game went on he became more confident in his tackles, but missed a header, which caused a little threat that was tamed by Demichelis.
Most of the time was out of position on set pieces and on the FK that Uruguay made bounce right in front of Romero, it was Otamendi’s man who got free. Overall, an ok game no really big mistakes but could have played better.

DEMICHELIS (9): Amazing display of what a true CB can do and how a CB can set up a stonewall. Demichelis was back in great form always bodying the Uruguayan attack around as well as tackling the ball away. A couple of time’s Veron passed sloppy balls back to Demichelis who was quick to clear out of our area. Every time Uruguay, and I mean every time they would attempt to slide a ball through or play someone
in our third Demichelis would deflect it out or stop the pass dead.
With Demichelis at CB and Romero in goal I am very confident in shutting down many teams. Great Great game from Demichelis our #1 CB at the moment.

SCHIAVI (6): Much like Otamendi, was sloppy, slow, and out of position in the first half, but didn’t really make to many glaring mistakes. Schiavi was never really tested to much because Demichelis was stopping everything. One point in the 2nd half he had a clumsy clearance right to Uruguay, but Romero was there to save the shot. For every small mistake he made he was solid enough to slow down the attack and allow for our players to come back and help defend. Good game for Schiavi, although I would not like to see him play on our NT anymore…he is not NT quality.

HEINZE (8): Moving from CB to LB for this game, Heinze played very well.
Him with Demichelis was a remarkable stopping force tonight. Heinze usually gets scared and makes sloppy passes, but tonight Heinze seemed to do everything right. He was great at pushing the ball forward and combining with Di Maria. Heinze’s work rate in tonight’s game can not be questioned, the entire 90 mins he was giving it his all. He knew what was on the line and did not seem to buckle under the pressure
like he usually does. Constantly slowing down the Uruguay attack and proved that he has a spot on the team just by the passion he shows on the pitch. Great play tonight

Jonas GUTIERREZ (6): Can sum up his play tonight in one sentence; was expecting to
see more out of Jonas today but still always working hard. In tonight’s game Jonas was really not noticeable at all, every once and a while he would pop up out of nowhere to make a run or a defensive stop. He really shined though towards the end of the match when everyone was tired, his endurance is un real. He smoked past Caceres only to get dragged down for a red card. This set up our free kick where we got our goal. Describes Jonas perfectly, he does all the hard running and hustling but gets the reward for the team indirectly.
Quiet but solid game for Jonas

MASCHERANO (7): This is the Mascherano that we are used to seeing. Completely different game than against Peru, Masch was all over the field today. Working well to compliment Schiavi and Demichelis. He collapsed well when we needed defensive support and always was putting pressure on the midfield, which made Uruguay make sloppy passes. True hustle hard nose player, confidant tackling all game and was rarely out of position. Good defensive support, which is his role, good game.

VERON (7): He came in for Aimar to play the attacking link with the strikers. Did a poor job with this, he supplied no help to the attack and pretty much dropped in line to play another defensive mid role like Mascherano. In the first half all his passes were sloppy and sometimes he forced passes that were not on. In the second half he played more defensively, his role of just keeping possession helped us
settle the game down as Uruguay pushed forward more. But no help in the attack, except for the one FK that we score on his shot caused the deflection to go to Bolatti. All that being said every time he got the ball from a striker he was content with just keeping the ball in the midfield. He knew that if we held possession safely and did not push to far forward a counter attack could not screw us. A true veteran performance by Veron and was key to us maintaining the tie until our goal.

DI MARIA (6.5): Good game for Angel. Pretty much our only dangerous player on the night. Early in the first half he was always running at defenders even if he didn’t get anywhere. Made a few bad passes and held onto the ball a little too long. But still the youngster’s touch and quickness was ever dangerous. In a game that was more for the defense he played well but did not get as many touches as he did in
the Peru game. In the second half Di Maria was completely invisible did absolutely nothing and was subbed out for Monzon in the 75th min to go even more defensive.

HIGUAIN (5): In a game where we had no link between the midfield and the attack Higuain did the best that he could have done. He ran around and checked back to get the ball only to pass back to Veron who did not give it back. Other than this there was a few good combinations with Di Maria on the left but overall some miscommunication caused for no good efforts on goal. Higuain played well, would have liked to see more initiative to attack the net but either way an ok game.

MESSI (4): I don’t know if I can even rate Messi tonight. He was pretty much non-existent the entire game for except 2 or 3 runs that looked dangerous. Every time he touched the ball he was dangerous but had no support on the ball up top and eventually just passed back to Veron. Not his game at all tonight and some may question his ability to perform on the NT level. But the truth is he had no one to combine with and he can not beat 5 Uruguay players every time he touched the ball.

Subs

MONZON (6): Came on in the 75 min for Di Maria to give more defensive stability. Nothing else to say, dropped back and marked well for the 15 mins he was in for.

BOLATTI (7): In for 10 mins, but took the deflection off of Veron’s shot calmly and shot into the goal. Got us the 3 points, other than that nothing else.

Tevez N/A: On for Messi at 86min

So we are on our way to South Africa, our performance tonight was a solid defensive display, and what I liked the best was the consistency. Even though we had only 1 or 2 shots on goal, we were consistent in our play in possession. Unlike against Peru where we played well in the first half and were non-existent in the second half, tonight we put up with the intensity and everyone played with passion away from home. Veron added nothing to the attack but was solid in controlling the tempo of the game, in a game where we only needed a tie. Still thousands of questions for what we need to do when we need to actually score. In the Peru game we had Aimar help the attack and we were good in movement up top but had a bad defense. In
tonight’s game we had Veron not help the attack but were solid in defense. We need to find some way to have the midfield both help attack and still be solid defensively. But at the moment I am very excited and happy for us, even though I have criticized Maradona, I am very happy for him. Tonight Maradona’s passion and work rate was shown by all our players and we came away with the result that we needed. I kind of like writing these happy player ratings…