FIFA 2010 World Cup: Argentina survive Mexican efforts, Germany next
Argentina and their coach Diego Maradona have been grateful to Mexico for giving them two world titles, in 1978 and in 1986. But this gratitude was put aside when the two teams faced each other in 2010’ Round of 16.
Argentina had their problems in qualifying for this World Cup. They needed a win from their last match of the qualifying round to get the last available place from South America. The same happened with Brazil in the qualification round of the 2002 World Cup. But how they performed in the finals is a glorious part of history.
Argentina had started the 2010 finals in the same manner, creating chance after chance in the opening match against Nigeria but the Nigerian goalkeeper could only keep the score line to 1-0 in favour of Argentina. Argentina’s progress in this World Cup would highly depend upon the performance of their strikers and the same was on display in their second match against South Korea. The Koreans did nothing wrong in the match and indeed played very well. But the prowess of the Argentinean attackers earned a 4-1 victory with Gonzalo Higuain getting the tournament’s first hat-trick.
Argentina rested their key players in the last group match against Greece but still ended with a comfortable victory to complete a perfect record of three wins out of three. It is, however, worth mentioning that the reigning FIFA World Player of the Year Lionel Messi is yet to taste his first goal in South Africa.
Mexico played the opening match of the tournament against South Africa and was held by the excitement of the host team and spectators to a 1-1 draw. Their biggest scalp was the 2-0 victory over 2002 Champions France, which confirmed their place in the Round of 16 despite a 1-0 loss to Uruguay in last group match.
In their previous four World Cup appearances from 1994 to 2006, Mexico qualified for the Round of 16 and has made it for the fifth consecutive time in 2010. However, they must have been disappointed that they could not covert any of their previous four chances into their third ever quarter-final match appearance. Their previous two quarter-final appearances came in their home World Cups in 1970 and 1986.
El Tri (the three-coloured) was desperate to do one better than the last tournament when they were knocked out by the same opponents from South America in the Round of 16 by a superb extra time goal from Maxi Rodriguez. Mexico was looking for a bit of revenge in this match.
Argentina were clear favourites. But the first two chances were created by the Mexicans. Carlos Salcido’s 30-yard effort was driven to the crossbar by the Argentinean goalkeeper Sergio Romero and the second from Andres Guardado. The talking point came when Carlos Tevez, while being miles offside, headed the ball home from Lionel Messi’s shot. Minutes later Gonzalo Higuain was gifted a goal by Ricardo Osorio before Carlos Tevez smashed a brilliant goal from outside the penalty area to take it beyond Mexico. Javier Hernandez reduced the deficit for Mexico 19 minutes from full time but it proved to be too little too late with Argentina going to the quarter-finals.
Argentina will now face Germany in the quarter-finals on Saturday, 3rd July. There is a sense of déjà vu involved here for Argentina. In the 2006 World Cup they defeated Mexico in the Round of 16 to clash with Germany in the quarter-finals to be knocked out of the tournament by the then hosts. Argentina has prevailed from a Mexican revenge but now they will be ones hunting for revenge from the Germans for a final match loss in the 1990 World Cup to Germany (!).
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