Argentina had all the possession in the World Cup Qualifying match against Uruguay but failed to score. The problems of the LA Albiceleste team are increasing day by day and whoever thought that the return of Messi would inspire will be scratching their heads.

New Look Argentina with same old problems

The Estadio Centenario did not see any sparks from the Sampaoli's team. Remember Sampaoli's first competitive game as Argentina coach was this match against Uruguay and the expectations were high. Sampaoli's tactic was three forward and three persons in the back leaving four in the middle and the aim was to keep attacking up front.

Albiceleste team has been having problems in attacking and their attack has looked clueless for a long time. They boast of high ranked international players but they somehow fail to translate that into an overwhelming performance on the field.

How the game fared for Albiceleste

The options of Messi, Dybala, and Icardi up front were thought to be an attacking option by many but the result and performance of them were disappointing. There were no electric movements up front as expected from two young players in the form of Dybala and Icardi and there was confusion about the role that Dybala was supposed to play.

Icardi was not fed with the ball and the same old technique of feeding balls to Messi and he getting blocked, was getting repeated once again.

Acuna for Argentina in the mid field was horrendous and he was struggling to get the ball up front There was an era in which Maradona and Riquelme fed the balls up front and that era is a gone by.

Di Maria looked all out of sorts in this crucial match for Argentina and he was able to fire in a lot of crosses into the Uruguayan box with no Albiceleste found anywhere near the crosses.

Such was the level of play that was on display and Albiceleste will need a lot of luck to get higher up in the world cup qualifying ranks. Currently, the Albiceleste team is ranked fifth in the group and only four teams qualify directly from the group. The fifth team would have to play two play offs and have to win both to qualify for Russian world cup.

The neat passing and the neat scoring of half chances that the Albiceleste team was boastful about has been missing for a long time and the midfield is still clueless when faced with tight defensive marking. Biglia did play well for Argentina but lack of creativity from Pizarro meant that the back line was not feeding mid field with the balls. Romero meant that Albiceleste did not suffer the ignominy of losing and he overcame the defensive lapses.