Argentina's Sweet and Sour Victory

Images by El Universo

Lionel Messi, F.C. Barcelona's striker and Diego Armando Maradona's key player, set in stone their World Cup hopes with a fantastic header from Argentine defender Gabriel Heinze. The goals was made in the 6 minute, held at the Ellis Park Stadium opening for Group B. Heinze's header, was made from a center corner kick from midfielder Juan Sebastian Veron, when Argentina was feeling very nervous about the rythm of the game. At the end, the hug at the end of the match between Messi and Maradona was seemed almost impossible to imagine because of the many criticisms towards Messi not having a good relationship with Maradona. In the end, Maradona was running around the field and congratulated all of their staff and players for their hard work.

This hard work is determined that even though Messi was not effective and did not score any goals, this shows to the world of Messi's abilities aside from the different tactics that is shown between F.C. Barcelona's exhibition as well as the Argentinian national team. What Messi lacked in the Argentina - Nigeria was the lack of Messi's scoring abilities, he missed several occassions to score but still the audience was in awe the fact that Messi facilitated his teammates to project into the offensive. Messi's explosivity in the offensive was extremely effective because it felt like a supercharged in Argentina's control of the game. The other player that lacked even more goals was Real Madrid's Gonzalo Higuain, Nigeria's defenders Joseph Yobo and Danny Shittu managed to not mark Higuain, which created several occassions to score. After the goal, Argentina changed tactics into keeping the game controlled and to remain with the score until an offensive vocation appeared.

Argentina's defender Jonas Gutierrez was very erratic in his game throughout the game, making the defense weak and to make Nigeria's players like Chinedu Obasi, Yakubu Ayegbeni and even defender Taye Taiwo to infiltrate easily in the Argentine's defense. Nigeria lacked the pefect shots on target because of Walter Samuel and Gabriel Heinze, Sani Kaita and Chidi Odiah couldn't equalize the game. This is the third straight victory over Nigeria in the World Cup, with victories in 1994 and 2002.