Returning to the Argentina national team, there has been a new head coach. Gerardo Martino parted ways with the Argentine Football Association due to salary issues and resigned before the Olympics. The current head coach of the Argentine national team is the former head coach of Sao Paulo, Brazil, Bauza, but he is also an Argentinian.
Now perhaps only Argentines are willing to take over Argentina's mess.
In addition to the replacement of the coaching staff, several players were also changed. Neither Aguero nor Higuain was selected for the national team due to injuries. Fortunately, the changes are not very big. At least the three main players of Velarde, Messi and Di Maria have not been changed. Everyone still has some confidence in this world preliminaries.
September 1st is the competition day, which is also the day to upgrade and add points at the beginning of every month.
Since he was about to upgrade and could get another 50 skill points, Willard used all the remaining 60 skill points this time, increasing his shooting from 98 to 99, his physique from 98 to 99, and Awareness increases from 96 to 97, technique increases from 95 to 96, speed increases from 93 to 94, and header increases from 93 to 94.
The strength enhanced by multiple skills was just used to compete in this world preliminaries, and his skill points were directly used up.
After adding points, Willard’s skill attributes change to:
Host: Alan Willard
Level: 47
Skill points: 0
Defense: 93
Physique: 99
Awareness: 97
Speed: 94
Headers: 94
Technology: 96
Shots: 99
Passes: 93
Inverse foot: 91
Goalkeeping: 30
…
After completing the two world preliminaries on this competition day, you will definitely be able to level up and get another 50 skill points as an upgrade reward. By the beginning of next month, 50 skill points will be spent to increase "shooting" from 99 to 100. Willard is looking forward to what effect it will have by then.
At 20:30 in the evening on September 1, 2016, with the whistle of the referee Baskunian, the seventh round of the 2018 Russian World Cup South American Qualifying Tournament between Argentina and Uruguay took place at the Malvina in Mendoza. The stadium officially begins.
Argentina is missing a center in this game. Neither Aguero nor Higuain is in place. No. 18 Prato from Atletico Mineiro in Brazil serves as the center.
But obviously, because he is rarely called up to participate in national team games, he has almost no cooperation with Messi, Di Maria, Velarde and others.
Therefore, before the game started, head coach Bauza told him that his main task was to stand in the penalty area and compete for headers and serve as a fulcrum for his teammates. He is not required to score goals, as long as he can stay in the penalty area and attract the attention of one or two opponents' defenders.
Prato completed the task assigned by the head coach very well. When he got the ball, he did not try to challenge Uruguay's defense, but decisively provided the ball to his teammates in the gap.
Only 4 minutes into the game, Prato turned his back to the goal in the penalty area. He resisted the push of the opponent's defender Jimenez and received a penetrating pass from Velarde. Messi on the ball did a good job.
Unfortunately, Messi's last left-footed arc shot failed to hit the door frame and slightly missed the post. Even so, Messi gave Prato a thumbs up, indicating that he did a good job with the ball just now, but he just didn't seize the opportunity.
The encouragement from captain Messi greatly increased Prato's confidence, and he fulfilled his role as a tactical center well in the following games.
Although he didn't catch the ball or shoot many times, with such a person in the penalty area, it was impossible for the Uruguayans to completely ignore him. One or two people had to mark him every time.
This creates opportunities for Villard, Messi, Di Maria and others on the outside.
Especially Velarde, who has increased his skills to 96 just today, which is probably the same as Messi at his peak. But he is physically stronger than Messi, faster than Messi, and has a consciousness as high as 97. When he breaks through with the ball, he is like no one else.
In the 14th minute, Willard took the ball in the middle and passed two people and almost went directly into the penalty area. That is to say, Diego Godin, the Uruguayan center back from Atletico Madrid, dealt decisively and took the risk of fouling and giving Argentina a free kick. He made a decisive tackle and successfully destroyed the ball from Velarde's feet.
Otherwise, if Willard dribbles the ball into the penalty area, Uruguay's goal will be very dangerous.
Even so, Uruguay's defense could not hold out for long. Under the constant dribbling and breakthrough of Velarde, Messi and Di Maria, in the 21st minute, Velarde switched positions to the left, hit the wall with Di Maria and then hit the bottom. Cross.
Prato grabbed the first point in the penalty area, but with his back to the goal, he could not attack the goal, so he passed to Di Maria who switched positions with Velarde in the middle.
When Di Maria unloaded the ball, the shooting route had been blocked by the Uruguayan defender, so he did not take credit for it, but made a diagonal pass and passed the ball into the gap on the right side of the penalty area.
Messi squeezed through the gap between the two Uruguayan defenders like a loach, volleyed the ball without stopping, and successfully kicked the ball into the goal.
Argentine fans immediately burst into warm applause and cheers from the stands. Messi opened the scoring for Argentina, and the Pampas Eagles led 1-0 at home.
After the first goal, the game became much easier to play. Argentina deliberately retracted its formation slightly to attract Uruguay to attack.
Even though they knew what Argentina was up to, Uruguay had nothing to do. After all, they were the ones lagging behind now and they couldn't do anything without attacking.
But Argentina has Otamendi, Zabaleta, Banega, Mascherano and other defensive heroes in the backcourt, plus Velarde, who has higher physique, consciousness, and speed attributes, returns to the defense to participate in the defense. And he used his superb awareness to direct his teammates to check for leaks and fill in the gaps. Uruguay's offense has been unable to make any progress.
Once the ball is lost, even if the Uruguayans return to defense in time, they will be shocked by the counterattacks of Velarde, Messi, Di Maria and others with strong personal abilities.
In the 25th minute, Velarde also hit a long shot from outside the penalty area and hit the door frame, which was of high quality.
However, Uruguayan goalkeeper Muslera was lucky this time and made a world-class save, which saved Velarde's long-range shot from the bottom line, causing Velarde to miss a goal.
However, the Uruguayans were not happy about the goalkeeper's wonderful save for long. In this corner kick attack, Velarde used his strong physique and jumping ability to seize the landing spot in the penalty area, jumped up and defeated the two Uruguay players. The defenders double-teamed Messi's corner kick towards the goal.
This time, goalkeeper Muslera finally failed to save the team because the distance was too close and he could only watch the ball fly into the goal.
Velarde finally scored and helped Argentina expand the score to 2-0.
