Argentina vs Greece

Argentina were approaching their final game knowing that a point would be enough to qualify in a group which was open for qualification.Maradona chose to rest a number of players including Carlos Tevez and and Higuain yet really emphasised the depth in squad by still naming a strike force of his son in law Kun Aguerro,Diego Milito and the dazzling Lionel Messi.In a game which was shaped as a training session on the World stage the Greeks fielded four centre backs and two full back in a compact looking to frustrate their opponents and for the majority of the game did.However form is temporary and class is permanent and this Argentinian side is very talented and may just go the distance with the animated Maradona experiencing every emotion his players did on the field. Socratis Papastathopoulos had been set a single mission to man mark Lionel Messi and not pay much attention to anything else and to be honest as pre mature as the tactic was,i think for majority of the first half he did rather well.However,the best player in the world displayed moments of brilliance at times and i sense he is not even on a last gear.I also thought the Lone figure upfront for Greece did well to show the world that Argentina can be attacked despite him being isolated upfront on his own.Samaris had a chance to put Greece ahead in one of the rare attacks by controlling the ball past one defender sprinting past another only to have his initial effort blocked ,following up with the rebound and watching his attempt go agonisingly wide. Martin Demichelis reacted first after his initial header was blocked by his own team mate Milito only to thump the ball past the outstanding Alexandros Tzorvas.Tsorvas put in a man of the match display and prevented a cricket score from happening.However,Messi switched on for a second jinked past two only to have his shot saved in which 36 year old substitute Martin Palermo (famous for missing 3 penalties in one game) scored the rebound. Argenitina 2 Greece 0