Boy is the "Messi" talk regarding Argentina getting on my nerves. Just look at this article, for starters: the whole solution to Argentina's problems is to structure the entire team around Messi, how to "best deploy" him.

I watched last night's game against Paraguay, and Argentina's midfield was so terrible that I actually started counting the number of passes per possession: I think I hit "4" a few times-- usually it was "2", or "3". And it wasn't purely tactical either: this Argentina team is simply not very technical with the ball at their feet. They are miles away from teams like Chile and Brazil in terms of raw footballing ability. Even Japan looked great in the first half hour or so of their last game.

Probably the only player who I thought played well was Lionel Messi-- the rest of the team looked like garbage. Just look at that insane penalty given away by Otamendi! Is that Messi's fault, or a shortcoming in tactics too?

For what it's worth, Paraguay are positively dismal as well. The entire game was both teams having poor passes and missed touches, resulting in 50-50 balls with players hitting the deck constantly. Super boring match, difficult to watch.