France Vs Argentina: Who's going Through Today?

If you would’ve told me before the start of the World Cup that Germany wouldn’t make it through the group stages, I would’ve found it highly surprising to be honest.

But the thing is, this tournament has been nothing but surprising. Even Argentina, armed with a deadly attack and counting with arguably the best football player that ever walked the earth seemed to be the clear favorite to top the group… And yet, they struggled incredibly in order to seal their qualification to the next round.

Which makes predicting the first game of the knockout stages all that difficult.

In a normal situation, I would’ve gone for France. They have a much more complete squad and they seem hungrier for success. But then again, there is the magic of Lionel Messi who can change the fate of a game in a matter of seconds.

And we’ve all seen him do that way too often.

The funny part about all of this, is that despite the game changing ability of so many superstars of each team (Leo Messi, Kylian Mbappé, Sergio Aguero, Antoine Griezmann, Paulo Dybala...etc) it's very likely that the fate of the game would be decided by the managers of each team.

Both Sampaoli and Deschamps have this unique trait to shoot oneself on the foot.

For example, Didier Deschamps has this strange inability to adapt to change quickly. In today's game for example, Argentina's flaws are obvious.

They have a slow aging team that does not recover possession quickly, their wing backs are often exposed and the aging midfield always failed to cover down the flanks... Which leaves great spaces to exploit for any opposing team.

But what's likely to happen is that Deschamps sacrifices one of his fastest, and take-ons specialists say Oussmane Dembélé in favor of a more static and physical player like Olivier Giroud who's probably going to be stationed in between the Argentinian central defenders trying to beat them in the air.

Coincidentally, that's the only part that the Argentinian defense really excels at.

So instead of exploiting your opponent's weakness, you focus on what makes them stronger. I guess we will see when the line-ups are announced.

In short, there is so many small details that tip the result in one direction to another, from spontaneous spark of genius from some the outliers on the field today, to one of those ridiculous defensive mistakes that neither team is precisely stranger to.

What's fascinating about this game however, is that it doesn't seem very likely to be a battle fought with strategy, rather a spinning wheel where no one knows where it lands.

And quite frankly, that's what makes the sport so special.

How about you, who do you think will make it today?

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