This World Cup was to be intended to serve as a complete renovation of our team, departing the "stars" from the 2014 WC, 2015 Copa America and 2016 Copa America Centenario. Our coach, who I think is a big asshole, promised us change but he didn't deliver.
You point out Messi lacks confidence on himself, probably, yes, Ronaldo is a fanatic of himself and he does what he does for himself. Both players had almost the very same situations in their respective games (penalties and last-minute free kicks), one did better and the other didn't. Messi had a bad day and we can't expect his teammates to be of much help, and we pay the price.
I think Argentina will struggle a lot in groups stage and we highly depend on what happens with Croatia, they have a superb midfield but are also more offensive, which would leave open spaces to Messi. We need to kick Di Maria out of the team and have Pavon play there, he did much better in 15 minutes than Di Maria in this match and the whole Qualifiers together.
Anyways, this edition is Brazilian, if they do just fine, they'll win. Germany comes in second, the rest are watching imo.
Argentina looks a bit of a shambles. You need a decent team as a springboard for stars to shine and they do not have that, although I think Messi has done heroic work getting them to the World Cup so I think it's unfair when people say he's useless as an international player. In their pre-WC interviews, some of the Argentine players were talking about how they hope they will be "worthy of Messi" or things like that. It just seems like there is a really fatalistic attitude there.
Argentina is in shambles, overall. From football to economy, from society to politics. The National Team is a realistic reflection of what we are now: Sad and Desperate.
There are good talents that can be called instead of the burned out "stars" like Aguero, Higuain, Biglia, Mascherano, Di Maria, Banega and others...
Something is going on inside the team, sampaoli went a couple of times to watch Lautaro Martinez, a former Racing Club player now in Internazionale, it looked it he was going to receive a call-up to be the reserve CF, a young talent who did very very well for Racing and also the Argentine U-20 team. He decided not to call him for whatever reason, he did the same to another Racing Club player, Ricardo Centurion, who is quite a polemic fellow, but has that gift few players in the world have, huge balls.
Well, he did call Martinez to play against Italy and Spain this year, he didn't feature in the Italy game and he came in from the bench against Spain when we were losing 4-1 already...
We were expecting change, swapping Higuain for Icardi (as he does better in Serie A and his Juventus counterpart, plus is a fresh player), Di Maria for Acuña (Sporting player, he did REALLY WELL when Argentina was desperate against Venezuela in the Qualifiers, he plays in Di Maria's position but he has been transferred to the left back position..) he could have kept Lautaro Acosta who did just fine, Gomez from Atalanta, Garay (best Argentine defender in the 2014 WC) is nowhere to be seen...
Something's rotten inside the team, Sampaoli is here to preserve the team, the names. Acuña could have EASILY benched Di Maria but he was moved back to a position he is not naturally adapted, Centurion could have easily benched Di Maria also, he was to be called but wasn't at the very last minute, Martinez wasn't called as he would take the CF position easily.. benching Higuain.
I see a pattern here. AFA is corrupt as hell and they might want to milk the famous stars for one last WC for that sponsors money.
There are two great Argentine coaches, Pekerman leading Colombia and Gareca leading Peru. Both should be clear candidates once we kick Sampaoli out (who has a millionaire contract also), but they won't be called. Why?, because there is no clear idea on what to do, no Youth Program or any kind of project to develop new players, we leave it all to luck and "see what happens next". That's also how we run our country...
Pekerman and Gareca are hard workers, but we prefer Sampaoli for the "scientific phrases" he often says. Bullshit, I hope we reach the finals and lose 4-0 to England, that'll hurt our pride big time.