Argentina Pushes Past Bullish Mexico
Bullfights at least have one redeeming feature. If the bull battles bravely against the inevitable, it deserves to be dispatched with the cleanest and quickest of blade thrusts.
On a steamy Saturday night, Mexico was the bull and Argentina the matador.
And the blade was a triple-edged sword -- Lionel Messi to Juan Pablo Sorin to Maxi Rodriguez. The three combined to create a goal eight minutes into overtime that earned Argentina a 2-1 victory and a place in the World Cup quarterfinals against host Germany in Berlin on Friday.
Mexico deserved better, and it would be foolish to say the defeat was painless. Afterward, Coach Ricardo Lavolpe and assistant Jorge Campos stood together on the sideline, silently staring across the field. Their players, who had given their all for two hours, stood with heads bowed.
At least the winning goal was clean and quick.
Messi, who turned 19 on Saturday, swung the ball over to his left, to defender Sorin overlapping down the sideline. Sorin spotted Rodriguez free on the opposite side of the field and delivered the perfect cross.
Rodriguez stopped the ball with his chest, let it drop and unleashed a shot from 20 yards that rose and then dipped, flying above goalkeeper Oswaldo Sanchez and dropping just beneath the crossbar.
“It could have gone into the stands just as easily as it could have gone into the net,” Rodriguez said. “But it just happened to go into the net. That’s the way it is.”
Pass, cross, goal.
And just like that, Mexico’s World Cup was over.
Lavolpe, the No. 3 goalkeeper on Argentina’s 1978 World Cup-winning team, tried to put a brave face on the loss. “We thought that Mexico had the possibility to be making football history in this tournament,” he said.
The game, played in front of a rapt and raucous 43,000 at Leipzig’s Central Stadium, started in spectacular fashion.
Mexico grabbed the lead in the sixth minute when midfielder Pavel Pardo delivered a free kick into the penalty area from the right, forward Jared Borgetti headed the ball across the goalmouth and defender Rafael Marquez, closing in at the far post, fired it into the net.
Far from being stunned, the Argentines simply set about getting back on level terms. Within four minutes, they had done so.
Playmaker Juan Roman Riquelme slammed a free kick into the Mexican defensive wall and the ball rebounded away for a corner kick, which was cleared. Argentine forward Hernan Crespo raised a leg to reach the ball on the second corner just as Borgetti stooped to head it.
The ball bounced off one or the other and into the net. Crespo, who afterward insisted that he had made contact, was given credit for the goal.
The next 88 minutes were a chess game of moves and counter moves, with both teams maintaining a high level of play but canceling each other out. Argentina’s attack was outstanding, with Riquelme the pass-master. Mexico’s defense was impenetrable, with Marquez the bastion.
Injuries to two Mexicans changed the course of the game. First, Pardo had to come out and later teenager Andres Guardado, a surprise starter but a very effective one, also had to be replaced.
Those forced substitutions limited the moves Lavolpe could make in the second half and overtime. Having used two subs, he had only one left and used it to put in Brazilian-born Zinha.
Argentina’s bench, meanwhile, was replete with players who would start on most World Cup teams. When Coach Jose Pekerman looked over to see who he could send in, he was spoiled for choice.
He opted first for Carlos Tevez, a gold-medal winner at the Athens 2004 Olympics, then for Pablo Aimar, a veteran midfielder, and finally for Messi, the top goal scorer and most valuable player at last year’s FIFA World Youth Championship in the Netherlands.
“The team was obviously strengthened by the substitutions,” Pekerman said.
Despite the influx of talent, however, Mexico continued to hold its own. Then came the Messi-to-Sorin-to-Rodriguez play and everything came unraveled for the Mexicans.
In the postgame news conference, Lavolpe was asked whether he had coached Mexico for the last time.
“Today I finished a contract. It is the owners and presidents [of Mexico’s clubs] who will decide. I think they will have to assess what we have done in these past 3 1/2 years,” he said.
Pressed, Lavolpe said he wanted to stay.
“I would like to stay and let this process continue. I would like to see the football ideas we had continue. I think now everyone in the world knows that Mexico plays good football. I think that’s obvious to everyone.
“Today we played Argentina on equal terms,” he said.
Argentina, meanwhile, is growing in strength from game to game. It has been 20 years since it last won the World Cup, but if it can unseat host Germany in the quarterfinals, it would have to be considered the tournament favorite, Brazil or no Brazil.
“Mexico has always been a very difficult opponent,” Pekerman said. “Look at the past games we’ve played. They have all been very similar. They played as well as I had expected. We know that we defeated a very, very good rival.”
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At a glance
SATURDAY’S RESULTS
* Argentina 2, Mexico 1
Extra time (Argentina
advances to quarterfinals)
* Germany 2, Sweden 0
(Germany advances
to quarterfinals)
STARS
* Maxi Rodriguez chested a long, arcing pass from captain Juan Sorin at the right corner of the penalty area and, in almost the same motion, wheeled and volleyed a soaring left-footed shot to the far portion of the net over goalkeeper Oswaldo Sanchez to give Argentina a 2-1 win over Mexico in extra time.
* Lukas Podolski scored twice in the first 12 minutes, set up both times by Miroslav Klose, in Germany’s 2-0 victory over Sweden to move into the quarterfinals.
TODAY’S MATCHES
* England vs. Ecuador
8 a.m. PDT, Ch. 7 and 34
* Portugal vs. Netherlands
Noon PDT, ESPN and Ch. 34
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Source: Associated Press
