By Rick Minars
(OFFICIAL ONELOVE ARGENTINA CORESPONDENT)
Last Saturday’s most anticipated match in Group B was played between Argentina and Nigeria. These two national sides have high expectation to qualify out the group as the top two teams. The Albiceleste and the Super Eagles have a rich history between each other in major competitions, such as the Olympics and especially the World Cup. The national sides have met in crucial stages of major tournaments numerous times and Argentina has basically always prevailed.
This past Saturday the victory went to the Albiceleste. A 1-0 victory to Maradona’s side to overcome Nigeria. Argentina in the first half played an excellent first 25 minutes. All the lines from defense to the midfield and to the three forwards were extremely concentrated. Even though Argentina dominated for most of the game, they did have spurts of lows, especially towards the closure of the game. During these lows, Nigeria’s began to push forward and create chances by testing Argentina’s keeper Sergio Romero. Even with the few chances that Nigeria posed as a threat, it looked like that most of the game Nigeria respected Argentina to much and let Argentina control possession of the ball and conceded too space. When Argentina possessed ball the the Nigerian side would just stand and watch without putting much pressure. The only way that Nigeria would recover possession of the ball was merely when the Albiceleste would get cute and make a mistake.
Overall the Argentinian goal was a set piece scored off a corner kick by diving header by Gabriel Heinze in minute sixth of the first half.
More to come this week on pre-game analysis on Argentina vs. South Korea.
Sergio Romero (AZ Alkmaar), 23 years old, 5 caps, first World Cup.
