Spain 2-1 Argentina. Dave's player ratings

I didn't watch the entire match as I missed the first half because of work. Therefore, I don't feel like I should write a report about this game as it wouldn't be fair.

But there is someone who did watch it and he is here to share his player ratings with all of us.

Dave, amigo, this space is all yours...

Was looking forward to this game ever since we qualified for 2010 last month. My initial impressions are that we are reverting back to the style of play that was going to get MARADONA fired before last October. We were playing Spain, which is no doubt one of the most talented, if not the most talented team in the world, but we definitely were lacking world class quality today. In the first half we created a few chances with HIGUAIN and DI MARIA both being off the mark. But other than that Spain ran circles around our midfield, we had no pressure on them and they were free to hold possession and attack the entire half. With the amount of pressure we were receiving, our defense did surprisingly decent, even though we were reckless. In the second half we came out with more intensity and fight, probably because XAVI was taken out of the game, but anyway it was a slightly more convincing performance from our players. Again, the defense and ROMERO were the only things keeping the score from being 4-1 or 5-1.

Anyway here are the ratings…

ROMERO (7.5): A good performance from our young keeper. Was confident in coming off his line to save many attacks from the Spaniards. On the first goal unlucky to have the deflection come out to an unmarked Xabi ALONSO, but Spain’s build up was beautiful. Towards the end of the game he had 4 goal saving saves. The only bad part of ROMERO today was his distribution, which seemed forced and reckless. Can’t do anything about ALONSO’s PK it was rocketed into the upper right.

COLOCCINI (5): Really shaky performance by Colocho all game, playing out of position at right back. As the game went on he settled in a little more, but was caught out of position too many times and would make reckless tackles like many of our other defenders tonight. He did save a goal of the line with his neck, but other then that proved not to be efficient enough as a defender and should not be on the NT. ZANETTI, ZABALETA, or Jonas should play this spot

DEMICHELIS (6): Demi was a brick wall the majority of the game. A solid outing versus a start studded Spain team, he would slow down VILLA, SILVA, INIESTA and XAVI all game. Made many key tackles at the last second and was confident on the ball. Very unlucky to get a hand ball in the box to allow for ALONSO to hit his PK. After the PK was scored in the dieing seconds we had another chance to score and Demi put the header over the net. If he let it go to CAMBIASSO maybe it would have been a tie. But other then 2 very unlucky plays he was the best defender on the night for us.

HEINZE (5): He always seems to impress me with how much passion he plays with, but today he was out of control more often then not. He would always be late with his tackles and was caught out of position on Spain’s first goal. Much like COLOCCINI he was made to look silly by SILVA and VILLA, he got very angry at how good Spain were and got a yellow card for making very silly tackles. Still HEINZE did have a few saving tackles, but I don’t know when MARADONA will see that his days on the NT are over, bring in SAMUEL or GARAY.

ANSALDI (5): Played well with his first International start against Spain. He had a quiet performance and was rarely out of position except for the ALONSO first goal, but could not do anything with such a lucky deflection. ANSALDI showed strength in holding up the midfielders and would push forward sometimes. Every time Spain would attack it was either at HEINZE or Colocho so ANSALDI did not have as much intense defending to do but when he was called upon he did well.

Maxi RODRIGUEZ (4.5): Was completely irrelevant in the first half, was nowhere what so ever to help the forwards and did little to no defensive work. However, in the second half he woke up a little bit an played with more intensity, he got involved with some runs forward and got the PK called for him by attacking ALBIOL. Other than that not much to say about Maxi, our entire team was lacking any offensive creativity or chemistry, we were all content sitting back.

MASCHERANO (5): Helped out in the defense the entire game like he was supposed to do. Did not have the most dominant game and allowed for INIESTA and XAVI to make runs around him all game. Was terrible in the distribution aspect of the game, and could not seem to break up any passes from the defense to the midfield which halted any of our attacks. Played well but with not much hope in attacking.

GAGO (3.5): What can I say? He played horrible. In the first half was just aimlessly running around and getting yellow cards and fouls. He did little to nothing in spreading balls out wide and distributing to MESSI and HIGUAIN. With a performance like this I can safely say that he is not NT quality. In the second half he came out with more hope to play better but it only made him play more clueless. In the 75th min he was subbed out for CAMBIASSO.

DI MARIA (5): Played well in the first half when we had no attacking combination at all. DI MARIA was the only player, that would make a chance out of our attack, he set up the first ball to HIGUAIN, which he missed, and when he had his chance he took it poorly and over chipped the goal. Still had good spirit and wanted to push forward all night. In the second half he pretty much disappeared when Maxi started playing. We could not get both our wings playing well at the same time tonight.

HIGUAIN (4): He made some good runs in the first half but probably touched the ball 4 or 5 times the entire game. Two of those touches were missed chances, the ball that DI MARIA played him he should have kept low into the corner. Later in the second half before he was subbed out he made a good individual run and almost powered the ball into the corner but missed. Good efforts but it was not his night tonight, and had no combinations with Messi all game, poor performance.

MESSI (4): Much like HIGUAIN, MESSI could not get anything going, partly because he could not combine with anybody because when he would look back to the midfield GAGO and MASCHERANO were never there. They were playing defense. He got very frustrated as the game went on and tried to do things himself. He made some individual runs but after beating 2 players he would get stopped or run into a wall of PUYOL or ALBIOL. All his passes were picked off or sloppily played. Good PK but that finish was expected of him. Another poor attacking performance in general by Argentina.

Subs

TEVEZ (4): Came on for HIGUAIN and added his typical work rate to the game, however his first touch could have been a pass that put DI MARIA in and it was horrible as he kicked it over the end line way to strong. Made some combinations with MESSI but could not get anything else.

CAMBIASSO (NA): The player we were all excited to see get called up only ended up playing 10-15 mins of the game. He really did not get settled into the flow of the game. He made some good tackles while he was in, and did make some good passes to MESSI. However, its unfair to rate him for only playing so little. I hope to see him starting in our next friendly if he keeps his form up.

LAVEZZI (NA)

PEROTTI (NA)

Overall in this game we saw more of what we usually see. Terrible midfield-forward combination, there was absolutely none of it today. We needed AIMAR or VERON to get involved so that MESSI and HIGUAIN would have a partner to play with. This is the main reason why we had no attack, GAGO and MASCHERANO are both DM. Our defense was solid against the ever-attacking Spain and played with good intensity but it was reckless intensity. MARADONA needs to stop calling up players like COLOCCINI, GAGO, HEINZE, and Maxi and get better defenders as well as midfielders that can get the attack involved if we want to score goals and get the best out of MESSI. Why call up PEROTTI and CAMBIASSO and only give them 10 mins of play time? Some names that should be considered by MARADONA for the next friendly are SAMUEL, ZANETTI, BANEGA, ZARATE, GARAY, ZABALETA, and INSUA. New tactics need to be tried because this 4-4-2, which is basically a 6-2-2 is horrible.

Hopefully, he will figure this out after witnessing today’s game. Our spirits were high and we worked hard but in the end it was an amateur football experience tonight. No one seemed to be in tune with each other, our work rate, along with ROMERO’s great hands was what kept the score from being 5-0.