Argie Bargie
Albiceleste Shine
Grilled Birds sustained their first defeat in some while to Argentina in the fourth round of the My Road to the World Cup trial, despite taking a two-goal lead at one point. Their weakness to high-level counterattacks would then be roundly exposed in the second half, as the Blue & Whites struck five times without response.
The Birds perhaps had reason to be confident after disposing of England 5-1 following two 6-0 whitewashes in the earlier rounds, but this Argentine selection was another matter altogether. There was perhaps not too much innovation manifest in their mostly-vanilla 4-4-2, but this was perhaps as they did not require any. Martín Juliani stood proud in goal with Argentina's main conceit being a bias towards the right, and with Alberto Paniagua and Nikita Zhilenkov up top,
Genki Nagano was in for a headache.
There would be little hint of the drama to come for much of the first half, though, as Argentina stuck to standard counterattacking tactics as enforced by centreback Fernando Adrián Compota. This involved high pressing intensity, aggressive tackling and a dose of the dark arts, against which
Hwang Teck Fu came close to losing his head over several times. Zhilenkov created the first serious chance with his burst past Genki in the 28th minute, and it took
Radomil Marcol's bravery to get the ball off his feet.
Grilled Birds then had their best period of the game after
Hisham Zubari was booked in the 35th, being less adept at disguising his intent than his Argentine follows. The free-kick was cleared back and turned into a corner by
Chad Thach, which had
Genki Nagano head marginally over. The Birds captain was finally getting his own back about now, and forced Juliani into a great reaction stop five minutes later to keep the Argentines level.
It all erupted as Paniagua and Thach nearly came to blows after the former's crunching tackle, which had both players carded after a bench-clearing intervention. Grilled Birds then rocked the hosts with strikes by
Chia Kwang Tse and then
Hwang Teck Fu, and Argentina could have entered the dressing room chilled, had leftback Eduardo Enrique Giampietri not then scrambled Pedro Hipolito Pistarelli's low cross home.
If Grilled were getting smug after that rocking conclusion to the half, they would not be for much longer, as Argentina tightened the screws upon the restart. They proved a lot more efficient on the offense than many gave them credit for, with Ezequiel De Angelis going one for one on completed crosses to assists, with his delivery lifted in about the 49th minute. Diego Bails might not have ventured up much, but nobody was going to stop him from absolutely powering this header into the net.
The Birds were then caught on the counter in the 63rd minute after another top-drawer Juliani save from
Hisham Zubari, with Alberto Paniagua completing his mission flawlessly after three passes took the ball straight inside the Grilled penalty area.
Houssam Belhocine was not having the best of days, and he was fortunate in that Marcol was able to block Paniagua's effort, after he had cheaply given the ball away after 76 minutes.
Lim An Keng went off with ten minutes left as
Dan Alstani looked to some
Wu Ping De magic on the left, but it was instead Argentina to put the game well beyond reach, though Zhilenkov and then Ezequiel De Angelis off an excellent corner, all within three minutes.
Hwang Teck Fu hassled the Argentine backline to no avail, with
Phillip Nagata then spurning a potential consolation goal in the third minute of stoppage time.
