Argentina 0-3 Croatia
It was absorbing. It was intriguing. It was potentially a clash of, if not two quality football sides, two nations in the World Cup 2018 boasting quality players.
World Cup 2018 odds still offer hope for Argentina but, based on the opening two games in Group D, the SBOBET football reporters are in agreement: this is far from the greatest vintage of the Albiceleste while Croatia could be rank outsiders for the tournament.
Highlights of the game
Lose and Argentina were in big trouble.
The big talking point arrived seven minutes after the restart.
It was a moment where you couldn’t help but feel sorry for goalkeeper Willy Caballero.
It was quite simply an awful miskick, yet it was one which many players get away with so often.
A simple back pass from defender Gabriel Mercado which the Argentina No 1 – in the absence of the injured Sergio Romero – tried to play back to Mercado but only succeeded in teeing it up to the lurking Ante Rebic.
Rebic still had much to do but produced a screaming volley of such great technique that it almost burst the net.
Rebic left the fray moments later, presumably as a result of a challenge moments before the goal when the midfielder had been taken out by an awful challenge from Mercado who stuck a leg across his knees.
Croatian fans may have said the goal was karma!
Whether it was or not, the repercussions were clear and it was the decisive moment.
Until that point, it had all been in the mix.
Ivan Perisic forced Caballero to tip the ball around the post within four minutes.
There was then a great block by Dejan Lovren to deny Maxi Meza, while a Marcos Acuna cross clipped the top of the crossbar as the game went end to end.
Sergio Aguero, probably the best player in the Premier League over the last seven years, was lively and caused plenty of problems for the Croat defence which made the decision to substitute him moments after Rebic’s opener so strange.
From one such run by the Argentine Number 19, his pressure forced an error which ultimately led to the unmarked Enzo Perez steering the ball wide of an empty net.
Then Mario Mandzukic headed wide with the goal at his mercy from a Sime Vrsaljko delivery – the two best chances of the half all arriving within two minutes of each other.
Tensions rose as Croatian fans told their Argentine counterparts to calm down. After Aguero saw a shot saved by Danijel Subasic, Rebic pounced on Caballero’s moment of madness.
After Subasic denied Meza and Rakitic denied his Barcelona teammate, the ever-frustrated Lionel Messi, the rebound, came a moment of outstanding quality.
It was Luka Modric, who so often pulls the strings with a mix of determination and silky skill, who was the diminutive Number 10 in Nizhny Novgorod Stadium and settled it with a wonder goal.
Modric dropped a shoulder to deceive Nicolas Otamendi, shifted the ball to his right and curled an unstoppable shot into the goal.
The cynical Otamendi was lucky to stay on the pitch before the end and was one of several Argentines who were spiteful and, in some cases, such as Javier Mascherano, clearly past their best and off the pace.
After Rakitic struck the bar, the final nail in the coffin was applied in stoppage time when he did get his goal: slotting home a move he started after a pass from the calm Mateo Kovacic.
Heaven knows what the watching Diego Armando Maradona and their World Cup-winning boss Carlos Bilardo, currently recovering from brain surgery, made of it.
Abject Argentina were stunned. Their World Cup hopes are hanging by a thread.
A new chapter in World Cup 2018 news has been well and truly written, and it makes dismal reading for the South Americans who are flattering to deceive.
Key statistics
This was Argentina’s heaviest defeat in the first round group stages of a World Cup tournament since losing 1-6 to Czechoslovakia in 1958.
Croatia have won back-to-back World Cup games for the first time since their brilliant debut campaign in 1998.
Their squad has one less player than other competing nations. This is after striker Nikola Kalinic was sent home after refusing to come on as a substitute against Nigeria, citing a back problem.
The only previous meeting between these two countries was at the 1998 World Cup group stage. Argentina won 1-0 courtesy of a Mauricio Pineda goal but both sides progressed.
What’s next?
Argentina now need to beat Nigeria in their last group game to have any chance of progressing to the last 16.
Even then, their fate won’t be in their own hands.
Croatia meet Iceland in Rostov.
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