always knew how to win

The first thing that Argentina had was patience, which is a very difficult state to achieve when the team goes, takes the right paths, generates goal situations, knows they are the owners of the situation, imposes the conditions of the game and, nevertheless, the result still tied. You have to be convinced and strong in the head so as not to lose your way. Ours knew that they had to win the duels on the wings – there was a great game by Molina, Acuña made the movements well, but was somewhat imprecise – and get to the bottom. But the overflow should not be accompanied by the classic center, but by a hitch or a low search for some preview of Julián Alvarez, or Messi or De Paul or Di María himself, when the overflow was from the right side and not from the.

The first half delivered a very good image of the team. Enzo Fernández was a central midfielder stopped in three quarters to keep the team in a dominant situation and separate Lewandovski from the rest of the Polish team, De Paul recovered a lot of his deployment with frequent access to the rival area and this gives the team a dynamic that it showed in the previous one, but not in the two previous games.

Mac Allister, the footballer closest to Lo Celso’s characteristics, had a consecrating performance. He was the help of Acuña and Otamendi in a sporadic counter-attack by Poland and had the necessary verticality to cut through the opponents who were waiting for him and associate when the rival goal was close. In one of those virtuous outbursts, he left Julián hand in hand with Szczesny. The Polish goalkeeper from Juventus also took a direct corner kick from his clubmate Di María. Argentina was around the goal the entire first half.

Leo Messi generated a penalty that has as many opinions in favor as against the sanction of the referee. His execution was not good, because any shot at medium height and not too cornered usually favors the goalkeeper’s action. Szczesny went over to his left, but he kept his right hand firmly in the middle and pulled it out. Here occurred a vital event for what followed: the Argentine team was so convinced of what it was doing that the negative episode -the only one from that first half- was absorbed and nothing changed. But they went 0-0 at halftime and those of us who were in the extravagant 974 Stadium feared that, if this result was maintained after 20/25 minutes of the second half, even with the same process, Argentina could lose patience, get discouraged and play the second half. final minutes with little lucidity.

But the great Qatari figure tonight, Alexis Mac Allister, put his right foot, not too firm but effective, on a straight pass from Nahuel Molina and the ball kept moving away from the hitherto impregnable Szczesny until it reached the net. It was only a minute of the plugin. The best Argentine player, Mac Allister, had laid the first brick in the construction of the urgent victory.

From then on, everything was simpler. Since Poland was still classified, he did not come out of his lethargy, not even the impending defeat moved him from his refuge. For Argentina, having the ball was not the merit to highlight because the rival gave up possession. The great virtue of the National Team was, even in this context, reaching the opponent’s goal with chances. After 20 minutes, and already with Paredes on the field and Enzo Fernández in an internal position -a place where he was indispensable in Defense and Justice, River and now in Benfica- Argentina only had to sharpen the aim to endorse in numbers the manifested superiority on the irregular grass of 974.

Precisely Enzo, attacking from the same place where he scored his great goal against Mexico, he received the ball after 26 touches preceded him. Touch 27 was from the Benfica kid, 28 was a crack definition by Julián Alvarez.

Final. Argentina knew how to live with a Messi surrounded. He found in Mac Allister a footballer capable of breaking fierce opposition with talent and dynamics, the sustained growth of Enzo Fernández, the talented goalscoring ability of Julián Alvarez, the wisdom of Messi -giving up prominence to resume it when necessary-, the courage of Di María and the Passarellian ferocity of Nico Otamendi.

All of them, plus Scaloni’s stupendous reading of his rival and his own troops, shaped a hopeful victory, full of soccer health, which leads us to think of very big things when we are still beginning the most complex part of the journey.