Critique of Argentina's Performance in Final

A team like Argentina,

with arguably the greatest player of all time,

still having a very good tournament,

eight goals and four assists coming in, refusing to play football is absolutely

disgraceful. The kicking, the nonsense,

the fact that they weren't even willing to come out and play,

it's a stain on the final, and it raises questions.

How did Argentina even get there?

We all understand that Argentina got the benefit of the doubt

throughout this tournament.

A number of decisions went their way against England.

No need to readdress that,

but Thomas Tuchel deserves a lot of blame.

The fact that he

refused to come out and attack that Argentina side,

but they absolutely brought nothing,

zero to the table today.

You see them get through the first 45 minutes. What was their first shot?

117th minute, it was a blocked shot from outside of the area, Andy.

That was Argentina's first shot, 117th minute.

A player was sent off, but even more so, Scaloni, who I really rate as a manager,

brought on five different players in the second half.

All of them were defensive players.

A holding midfielder and four defenders.

I mean, he's playing not to win the game.

That is completely against the spirit of this.

I know that things are cagey and tight,

and you need to play things a little bit differently in a cup final, but, I mean,

that was never the way forward, and it made

the entire event kind of anticlimactic at the end.

It just felt like the

football audience was wanting more.

They're playing in front of a stadium full of very rich people who are spending

tens of thousands of dollars on tickets, so the atmosphere wasn't there.

All the stoppages,

whether it was the hydration breaks, into almost 30 minute halftime,

then another hydration break.

I felt like I was watching, like, a bad stage production

with way too many intermissions.

That's kind of what it felt like. Overproduced and underdelivered.

But congratulations to Spain in the end.

Basically, if you have money,

you don't know how to be a sports fan.

Is that what we got from that too? It's the atmosphere.

Those aren't the real fans that are in the stadium.

It's a bunch of celebrities and politicians.