Argentine World Cup winner Ossie Ardiles has said that Jorge Sampaoli's 2018 team are the worst team in the history of Argentina football.
Argentina were convincingly beaten by Croatia in their second game in Group D and now must win their final group game against Nigeria and rely on other results in the Iceland-Croatia and Nigeria-Iceland game if they are to advance to the knockout stages.
Ardiles was a member of Argentina's 1978 World Cup winning squad and he wrote in a series of Tweets that the current squad is the "worst in their history" and not even "the best player in the world" in Lionel Messi can make them competitive.
"From world champion to being the worst national team in Argentina history. Where to begin?,"Ardiles tweeted.
Before continuing:
"Sampaoli: Dreadful. Finished his cycle insulting the Croatian players. Arrogant, ignorant. Even having the best player in the world was not capable of creating a competitive team. Never the same 11 during his tenure.
"Plan A of Sampaoli. Give the ball to Messi and wait for a miracle. If Plan A doesn't work, Plan B. Errr. There is no plan B. Let alone plan C or D. Defensively: Make fouls. Wherever it is and regardless of the circumstances, or the consequences."
"To be playing outside of Argentina does not mean they are elite players. Many of them were not even starters in their own teams.
"The prestige acquired over the years especially by the two world champion teams thrown overboard.
"Embarrassing also the "bullying" of our most experienced players: Mascherano, Otamendi. The incident with Rakitic. Please Otamendi: Apologise.
"All the Argentinian decline of recent times was hidden by this unrivalled genius who we are lucky was born in Argentina. But even for him it was too much at the end of the day. Leo: Many thanks for everything. And good luck in your future."
Sampaoli said after the game that it was not right to blame goalkeeper Willy Caballero for Argentina's loss and that he takes responsibility for a poor gameplan.
"It’s not right to blame Caballero," said Sampaoli after the match.
"If I’d planned things differently, it would have worked out differently. ‘I honestly thought the plan for this match was going to put pressure on the opponent. But after the disaster of the first goal, it was tough, we were lost emotionally.
"Our driving force is Leo, but we couldn’t find him. We work as a team to get the ball to Leo, but also the other team works to avoid that.
"There is shame, pain, at not delivering for the Argentine people. It’s been a long time since I felt like this, and now it’s happening with the shirt of my own country. It hurts badly."
