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本帖最后由 Alex2011 于 2011-7-6 20:45 编辑
Argentina and Brazil stutter out of the blocks at the Copa América
Both teams have tactical and selections issues to resolve after being held to draws in their opening games
Both Argentina and Brazil lacked cohesion in their opening-match draws at the Copa América. Photograph: Martin Acosta/Leo La Valle/Reuters/EPA
After a week of sporting gloom for Argentina, at last in La Plata on Sunday there came something to lift the mood. The misery began with River Plate's relegation, continued with Argentina's disjointed draw with Bolivia in the Copa América, and reached its nadir on Sunday when Argentina's women's hockey team lost a shoot-out to the Netherlands in the final of the Champions Trophy. Only then did there come a break in the clouds, as Brazil also began their Copa campaign with a disappointing draw, failing to score against a youthful but disciplined Venezuela.
In part, the pitch in the Estadio Unico may be to blame. The grass is longer than ideal, and a close look reveals a bumpy surface given a misleading sheen by piles of green sand. The ball didn't run smoothly, and that perhaps affected the rhythm of both sides. Nonetheless, both Argentina and Brazil have significant issues to resolve if they're to win the tournament.
It would be easy, in focusing on the two giants' shortcomings, to neglect how well Bolivia and – in particular – Venezuela played. Venezuela has never been a football country – it's won three times as many Miss Universe contests than it has matches at the Copa América – but reaching the quarter-final on home soil four years ago has given the sport a boost and qualification for the finals of the World Under-20 championship two years ago brought a number of young players to prominence.
Tomás Rincón, the Hamburg midfielder, was exceptional on Sunday, breaking up Brazilian attacks and carrying the ball forward with verve and imagination. Oswaldo Vizcarrondo, long-haired and muscular, was commanding in the centre of defence, while Renny Vega was quick off his line and surprisingly effective with his one-handed takes. They rode their luck to an extent in the first half, Pato hitting the bar for Brazil and numerous shots being blocked with desperate challenges, but in the second they were rarely troubled.
That fact, the way Brazil lost their way after half-time, is probably the biggest concern for Mano Menezes. In the first half Neymar was lively, if a little inclined to over-complicate; in the second he vanished. Ganso, in just his second appearance for the national team, struggled to make an impression, and seemed at times to be playing too far forward, so he was always receiving the ball under pressure. Pato, operating as a more orthodox No9 than might have been expected, was the pick of the forwards, one touch in taking down a long diagonal from Dani Alves quite sublime, but Robinho flickered to little effect.
Argentina had similar problems on Friday. Sergio Batista's talk of making Argentina play like Barcelona always seemed over-ambitious – trying to create the work of a decade in a fortnight – and so it proved. Lionel Messi may have played as he does for Barça, but it didn't matter, because Ezequiel Lavezzi, Carlos Tevez, Ever Banega and Esteban Cambiasso didn't play much like David Villa, Pedro, Andrés Iniesta and Xavi. Nor did – or can – Javier Zanetti and Marcos Rojo offer the sort of thrust from full-back provided by Dani Alves and Eric Abidal.
Batista criticised his team for becoming "too vertical" – a term, if not coined by Marcelo Bielsa then at least popularised by him, describing the tendency to head directly for goal, whether with long passes, dribbles or runs, rather than patiently building play. It usually suggests a lack of patience, a sense of anxiety, and Brazil could be said to have suffered the same problem (which isn't, of course, a million miles removed from a succession of England coaches lamenting the long-ball, headless-chicken tendency). Too many players tried to solve the problem individually, every dribble down a blind alley, every aimless cross, signifying a lack of faith in the team unit. That touches on a deeper issue – the growing gulf, both in terms of quality and entertainment, between club and international football.
A recognition of the bigger picture is of little use to Batista and Menezes, though. Both must energise their sides ahead of ostensibly tougher games later this week: Argentina face Colombia in Santa Fe on Wednesday; Brazil play Paraguay in Cordoba on Saturday. Batista seems likely to rejig his forward line, probably with Sergio Agüero, scorer of the superb equaliser on Friday, coming in. But does he replace Lavezzi, who was poor on Friday but has linked well with Messi in the past, or Tevez, who was equally ineffective, but whose popularity with the fans was demonstrated by the volume of the cheer when his name was announced? He may also change the make-up of the midfield, and introduce Angel Di María in a relatively deep role to offer a little more creative drive.
Menezes faces similar dilemmas. When he substituted Robinho and Neymar, the decisions were met by booing; dare he risk public wrath by leaving either out next Saturday? Neymar's first-half performance – which was enough to win him the nonsense that is the man-of-the-match award (which might more honestly be renamed the most-famous-attacking-player award) – should be enough for him to retain his place, but Elano could come in for Robinho and Ganso may find his position under threat.
In practical terms, the stuttering starts made by the two giants shouldn't matter. Assuming both finish in the top two, they can't meet in either quarter- or semi-finals, and it's fair to assume the organisers are desperate for a third straight Brazil-Argentina final. Bolivia and Venezuela, though, offer a reminder that there's more to South America than the big two.
Posted by Jonathan Wilson in La Plata Monday 4 July 2011 10.10 BST guardian.co.uk |
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