Argentina failed to impress at the 2018 World Cup as they managed to win only one of the four matches played in the FIFA tournament in Russia, and that was against Nigeria.
In the second group stage fixture, the South American nation suffered a 3-0 defeat at the hands of Croatia. The latter opened the scoring after Willy Caballero’s poor clearance from Gabriel Mercado’s back pass allowed Ante Rebic to smash one into the net.
Jorge Sampaoli, who was then in charge of La Albiceleste, dropped the Chelsea goalkeeper and replaced him with Franco Armani for the last group stage clash to face Nigeria and the knockout tie against France.
The Chelsea backup has now taken the blame for his error against the World Cup finalists and went on to suggest that there were several reasons why Argentina failed to perform well at the last major FIFA tournament in June.
“It was very hard, more for my family, very disrespectful. As a team we didn’t have identity, we did not manage to scare away our opponents.”
Argentina are still without a national team manager since Sampaoli was axed, and Caballero wasn’t called up for the latest international break.
