Player Ratings for Catalunya vs. Argentina

As always here on Mundo, following every match we have Dave send in his player ratings for the match. But for this match, we had GK give us his player ratings. So without further-a-do, here are the ratings!

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I am not any kind of journalist or writter, just a die hard Albiceleste fan....

We end our terrible year with another terrible performance. We had our chances and our time to shine but we didn't finish and the end result was another defeat for the Albiceleste.

4-2 DEFEAT

Player ratings (by position more or less)....

GK - Pozo
Really? Who is this guy? He was absolutely terrible, embarassing even. He failed to handle a routine cross early on and let it slip through his hands. He looked like an ameteur more than anything. Why didn't one of our potential backups for the World Cup start this match? Andujar should have got the call over Pozo to get more minutes in just in case Romero goes down with injury anytime before or during the finals in June. He did come up with one big save late in the match and that is where he scores his ratings points.
Rating: 4

DEFENCE
Again, terrible. If Argentina plan to compete for glory this coming June they really need to take the time and sit down and work on our back line. Demichelis was really the only one of the four who looked like he knew what he was doing and where he should be during the Catalan attacks. He bailed out Otamendi with a beautiful tackle and really controlled the defence. He is the man we want starting in the middle of our defence come June. Papa was more than terrible and I continue to scratch my head 'why is this guy called?'. He was bad in the defence pretty much all game and blew an open net oppurturnity. Otemendi was decent though far from impressive and Alvarez could have done much better in my opinion.
Rating: 3

MIDFIELD
Pastore. What a pleasant surprise for the Albiceleste. He only was called up because Messi couldn't make it and he really did his best to impress Diego. He set up a fair amount of attacks and finished one himself with a beautiful opening volley goal for Argentina. What made his volley especially nice is that flicked up the little volley for himself and finshed it beautifully.
Pastore personal rating: 8

Gago. Where to start? We just discussed Gago's terrible performance in the Mundo chat room with Roy and others. I really don't know what to say about him. He is, or was tonight at least, by far our weakest link on the national team. Did he even touch the ball in the first 45? Did he even want to be on the field to begin with? He showed no motivation and no passion what so ever. I have my fingers crossed that he won't be apart of our 23 man roster come June but if he is, let's pray that he is moved during the January transfer window and goes to a club where he will see minutes as a starter rather than a sub, or in his case not selected at all.
Gago personal rating: 2 (is that too generous?)

Bolatti. To be honest I didn't really notice him out there or knew why he was out there to begin with. He scored against Uruguay to secure our place in the finals. Does this justify his place in our midfield? I think there are plenty of other Argentines that can fit into the middle other than Bolatti and I know I'm not the only one telling from the comment boxes of previous Mundo posts. (Cambiasso anyone?)
Bolatti personal rating: 6

Di Maria. Sure he blew quit a few chances and I know its frustrating as a supporter but there is no denying that he was great out there tonight. He was the best player out there on the field tonight (you can argue Pastore was superior). He scored the second goal for us and should have been awarded a penalty kick before that which could have changed the entire outcome of the match. Great game for Di Maria, I am convinced he will drop jaws in South Africa.
Di Maria personal rating: 8

FORWARDS
Lavezzi. Like Pastore, a pleasant surprise. I know alot of us here a Mundo (including myself) have complained about his call up on the national team. He seemed so energetic and ambitious out there tonight that would start him over Tevez or Aguero in a heart beat. We can keep calling for Lisandro and Milito but until they are called, Lavezzi might be our solution up front. I know he didn't score but he is definatly capable of scoring or setting up chances for us.
Lavezzi personal rating: 7.5

Higuain. Another player who just couldn't finish for the life of him tonight. Missed a header early on and had a few other chances afterwards and couldn't do anything with them. I don't think he took this friendly lightly but maybe he took it a little too personal being a Real Madrid star? Overall I was happy he got the start, although the mediocore performance and hope to see him in the starting 11 come June.
Higuain personal rating: 7

Not sure if any sub had any kind of influence other than Datalo who seems to score or create chances soon as he is subbed in. You don't really look at him as national team material but once he is on the field and playing for us he tends to impress. Like I said this is my first player rating but if I had to rate him I would give him a 7.5
As for the rest of the subs, I can't really come up with a player review or rating for them other than Palermo. Did he touch the ball even once with his time on the field? Did we even see him on the screen? Again, like Bolatti,he scored a heroic goal in qualification but you can't use that as justification to be on the national team.


I hope this was a decent player rating for fill in for Dave P.

VAMOS ALBICLESTE!!!!!