Angel of Gold

The man of the past 24 hours within the Argen­tine national team was Ángel Di Maria. He was being inquired about by Real Madrid and then Barcelona but he quickly quashed any spec­u­la­tion as he men­tioned that he would remain with Benfica.

That would not lead him to to let down as the biggest game of his life was just around the cor­ner. He was about to face a team that had quite an impor­tant ¨rivalry¨ of sorts against the Albice­leste. Start­ing from the 1994 World Cup to the gold medal match in Atlanta 1996 to the the final of the U-20 in 2005, Nige­ria was going to be a force to be reck­oned with.

There were other fac­tors that played a huge role in the game, such as the inces­sant heat of the Bei­jing after­noon that were vital, but for the most part the game fit the billing.

Argentina was deserv­ing of the gold medal as they remained true to their game through­out the tour­na­ment. They also showed that they were the deep­est side. Every­one knew com­ing into the Olympics what Riquelme, Messi, and Agüero could do. Yet there were other pro­tag­o­nists that made their job much easier.

The one that stood out the most was Di Maria. He was part of the rea­son why Niger­ian coach Sam­son Sia­sia changed his strat­egy and depended more on the coun­ter­at­tack to gen­er­ate prob­lems in the back­field. Nige­ria was a force through­out the tour­na­ment, and then all of a sud­dent Sia­sia changed the script. Argentina imple­mented the rhythm and estab­lished the play. Lio Messi caused may­hem in the left wing of the Niger­ian defense, but there was a the Barcelona young­ster was not able to run towards goal as he was taken out­side. His abil­ity to open up the left, helped Pablo Zabaleta com­ing in behind them. Ser­gio Agüero was the com­pli­men­tary fac­tor com­ing from the right, but was not quite the bomb that he was against Brazil down the mid­dle. There was a con­tro­ver­sial call when Agüero was pushed in the box and Hun­gar­ian ref­eree Gabor Eros turned the other way.

The cen­tral defend­ers for Nige­ria held up the mid­dle and refused a clear shot to the Argen­tines. The first shot of the first half was cour­tesy of a Messi left-footed shot that was saved by an inspired Ambruse Vanzekin. After that point, Nige­ria evened out the level of play and were able to make Ser­gio Romero uncom­fort­able. Blame that mostly on Peter Odemwingie who took advan­tage of Zabaleta mov­ing up into the attack. Not that Zabaleta was doing a poor job of defend­ing him poorly, just that the Loko­mo­tiv forward’s pace was a dif­fer­ence maker in a few instances. He was respon­si­ble for the header in the first 15 mintes of the match that barely went over the Argen­tine goal. Odemwingie would then make another run towards the mid­dle and cross the ball that would find its away across the six-yard box. On the other side, another cross would come in and it would find an unex­pec­tant Promise Isaac. The ball bounced off of Issac and caught Romero mov­ing for­ward. He was able to rec­tify his foot­ing and dive back­ward to catch the lob­bing ¨header¨.

The one aspect of the Argen­tine offense that really lacked was that of Boca Juniors star Juan Román Riquelme. His vir­tual absence made it seem like Argentina played with ten men. This is when Javier Mascher­ano and Fer­nando Gago stepped up their game expo­nen­tially. These two blew up var­i­ous Niger­ian attacks and gen­er­ated some impor­tant coun­ter­at­tacks that caused prob­lems for their rivals. This game show­cased the mid­field­ers´ com­bi­na­tion of style and strength that made them so valu­able to this team.

The first half would end on a spec­tac­u­lar shot by Argen­tine left­back Luciano Monzón. The left-footed shot went for the near post but Ambruse Vanzekin was teh sav­ior once more with a spec­tac­u­lar dive. Vanzekin touched the ball and put enough into it that the ball nicked the post for an even­tual Argen­tine corner.

The sec­ond half saw the two sides come out to a furi­ous pace that showed the two sides´ con­trast­ing styles. Argentina´s con­trolled and bril­liant magic that put every­one at the Bird’s Nest on the edge of their seat. Nige­ria was a fre­netic beat that was a bun­dle of power that was start­ing to get con­fi­dent, but that would prove dan­ger­ous.
In the 57th minute, Argentina would blow up a Niger­ian attack and give the Africans a taste of their own med­i­cine.
Lio Messi would col­lect a ball and pass it with pin­point pre­ci­sion to Ángel Di Maria, who was in a full sprint. Chizu­bor Okonkuwo was in a bind as he saw him­self in the wrong end of a two-on-one as Agüero was on the other side of the Di Maria. This would leave Vanzekin in a posi­tion to make the most dreaded deci­sion for a goal­keeper to make. Behind door one, he could stay in the box and wait for Di Maria and improve his shoot­ing angle. Behind door two, he would have to go out into a fran­tic rush and wih for the best. His defender had to stay in his lane, so door one was opened.
Di Maria coun­tered with a bril­liant fin­ish. He saw Vanzekin com­ing out and fin­ished like a genius. Some­where a Real Madrid exec sali­vated a lit­tle more to have the for­mer Rosario Cen­tral phe­nom. To see him chip the bal ball over an impo­tent Niger­ian goal­keeper had a rip­ple effect every­were from Bei­jing all the to Buenos Aires. Alfio Basile also felt jus­ti­fied after he called the Ben­fica young­ster for upcom­ing inter­na­tional duty ear­lier in the day much to the crit­i­cism the domes­tic media.

In the end Nige­ria came in to the game with a puncher´s chance and proved it with their inabil­ity to fin­ish passes, but they still threat­ened. Their game­plan changed, but after that their nerves set in and were not able to cap­i­tal­ize. Despite all of that going against them, Nige­ria would unset­tle the Argen­tine defense late in the sec­ond half when Odemwingie once again passed Zabaleta and his cross would touch sub Vic­tor Anichebe´s foot, but would be denied by Romero.
Nige­ria on offense was unchrac­ter­istc, many times they appealed to the fan­tasy pass or touch their way to goal when power and pace were their recipe to caus­ing prob­lems in the net. In cer­tain instances it played into Argentina’s hands. Their opor­tu­ni­ties were neu­tral­ized by their lack of ideas as well as their lack of intel­li­gence in a tight game.
For Argentina it became the sec­ond con­sec­u­tive gold medal. Javier Mascher­ano became the first Olympic soc­cer player to win back-to-back gold medals. Messi and com­pany earned their first, but the day belonged to Ángel Di Maria. His goal made him the team’s lead­ing scorer and the player of the tour­na­ment. For the young­ster, that is quite a bit to be said as his magic car­pet ride continues.

Tagged as: , Agüero, Di Maria