cashew | Some Argentina NT thoughts

(Icon has nothing to do with the content. It's just the one icon that's close to Argentina's colors, so I'm using it.)

Since Acuña and Montiel have accumulated two yellow cards, they are now suspended for the semifinal. This is a huge blow to Argentina, especially Acuña, because he's been the reason Argentina has any movement down the left wing. Losing Acuña means losing the entire left wing in attack.

Saw a convo between some Argentina fans that I'm paraphrasing here:

Person A: OMG we're screwed.

Person B: No, it's fine. Losing Acuña just means our left wing is dead.

Person A: HOW IS THAT FINE?! 😭

It's honestly really bad for Argentina. This hurts their chances against Croatia, who has an extremely difficult defense and Argentina would need basically everything firing on all cylinders. But right now Argentina is very much not firing on all cylinders.

I'm still mostly content, because I never had high hopes for this team in the first place. The media keeps trying to pretend Argentina are the favorites, but they honestly aren't. Their quality is, on average, not as high as France or Brazil (who are out); their organization isn't nearly the level of Croatia or Morocco; their collective attack is actually even weaker than Portugal (who are also out 🥂); and their tactics are pretty rudimentary.

The only advantage Argentina has going for them is having a player who is the greatest of all time, a generational but aging talent in Di María, a PK shot-stopping specialist in "Dibu" Martínez... Even if they somehow miraculously get past Croatia (who has already beaten them once 3-0 in the last World Cup), they'll still have to face down either Morocco (who has only conceded a single goal all tournament) or France - the Champions of the last World Cup.

I don't understand how anyone could think Argentina has a good chance. And I support these guys. I think they're very good, but the odds really are against them. Honestly, we might as well just hand the trophy to France already. It's not like there's any team that comes remotely close to challenging them.

Nonetheless... ¡Vamos Argentina!

A final quick note, I've been very annoyed with the English coverage of this World Cup. First, there's the xenophobia towards Qatar. I get it, you have problems with the country, but have the West bothered to look at themselves in the mirror lately? Do they really have room to be pointing fingers about migrant workers and LGBTQ+ rights? Because let's be real, the West had fallen on that front pretty damn hard.

Second, there's the specific desire to make South American teams the bad guys. BTW, those are the exact words used by the media. And it's immediately after writing how they are not trying to villainize any particular team. Well, media, you certainly have an interesting definition of what not villainizing means... The sheer audacity, the sheer gall of these people. I don't have words left.

In short, the coverage has been absolutely disgusting. It's funny how these sports writers bemoan that no one takes them seriously, but then they write garbage takes and expected to get paid for their efforts. Well, the joke's on you. I'm busy not paying you to ruin things for me and enjoying my time in the World Cup and reading hot takes by people who actually seem to love Argentina and Messi and don't have some kind of hate-on for joy and fun.

You sports writers can keep living in poverty because I hate your writing and you don't deserve to be paid for it. Fuck off.