FIFA’s world rankings are regularly referred to as a joke, and the system has revealed a certain macabre sense of humour with Argentina No1 in the world.
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Within hours of their penalty shootout defeat to Chile in the Copa America final, La Albiceleste were positioned above Germany, the team they lost the World Cup final to 12 months ago.
Two finals: two defeats, and the accusation they are, at best, failing to live up to their potential and, at worst, football’s biggest chokers.
The question is now becoming routine: how can a nation which has produced so many great players (and it really is too many to list) have not won a title since 1993?
During that time, of the seven other historically ‘major nations’, only the Netherlands and England have remained trophy-less; and one of those continues to punch well above their weight with a domestic league struggling to match its European rivals and a population of just 16.8 million.
Brazil (twice), France, Spain and Germany have all been world champions and continental kings.
The FIFA rankings do reward consistency and Argentina have lost just three of 25 competitive matches since 2012 (if world football was a league they’d be comfortably top of the pile). But what is significant is two of those defeats were in games that mattered most.
Such is the nature of sport, small margins can decide everything and as was widely pointed out if Gonzalo Higuain had converted the two chances he was presented in the World Cup and Copa America finals then Argentina would truly be the best team on the planet.
But with Saturday’s loss being their fifth straight final defeat, and their third in succession in South America’s national competition, this is surely much more than a matter of just small margins.
Taking the final in isolation, Argentina certainly succumbed to Chile’s physical tactics and couldn’t repeat the free-flowing football that saw them thrash Paraguay 6-1 in the semi-final. A result which was seen as a cleansing of the squad, a win to alleviate the pressure off Tata Martino’s side heading into the final.
But the warning signs were there in the quarter-final against Colombia.
With Argentina moving back to the top of the FIFA Ranking, they do so for the first time in over 7 years.
— Dale Johnson (@dalejohnsonESPN) July 4, 2015
They were by far the better side but were worryingly wasteful in front of goal. With forward players of the quality of Lionel Messi, Higuain, Sergio Aguero, Ezequiel Lavezzi and Javier Pastore it wasn’t for a lack of ability.
Tactically, as Javier Mascherano admitted, they were well behind the Chileans. For footballers plying their trade at the very top of European football, with discipline ingrained in their psyche, that is unforgivable.
Martino must also bear a huge amount of blame. His credentials for the job were born out of his time at Newell’s Old Boys but his naivity displayed while in charge of Barcelona was again exposed.
Matthew Syed, author of Bounce: The Myth of Talent and the Power of Practice, describes choking as when anxiety sees an athlete “seize conscious control over a task that should be executed automatically”.
No sportsperson ever wants to admit a case of mental weakness but without the pressure, Higuain takes both chances; for Barca last season, Messi averaged a goal every 4.5 shots, in the Copa America it was one in 27.
The weight of history hangs heavy over Argentine football. None more so than in the heads of their talented players.
