It was not that the results were unexpected but having seen these two men spin magic over the years, the heart always felt some last minute magic to happen. But alas that was not to be.
First match of the pre-quarter-finals had Argentina against France. It is not that France was a much more superior side and their football so far didn't display anything convincing. There were chances that a strategized approach from Argentina could help them. France was the faster team. They had young players like Mbappe whose speed couldn't be matched by Argentine defenders.
The foul which resulted in the first goal was completely unnecessary. The ball was quite out of reach for Mbappe and definitely there were no chances for him to score. That foul resulted in a penalty and France went up. Argentina equalized from a fabulous long range shot from Di Maria; looks like that so far is the goal scored from the farthest distance this world cup. And then at the beginning of the second half Argentina went up once again.
But after being 2-1 up the football Argentina played was unimaginable. Their defense suffered some momentary amnesia and in that brief lapse 3 goals were scored by France in a span of just 11 mins. Mbappe scored two having just outpaced the Argentine defenders.
We always tend to question why Messi has been so unsuccessful for the national team. But anyone who has seen this match would understand the manner defense conceded 3 goals is just demoralizing. It's not that Argentina is a great goal scoring machine. They just needed to hold on to the thin margin but they couldn't. How can you expect Maschareno at 34 years to run and compete against Mbappe of 19.
Added to that the inconsistency of VAR also affected Argentina. They were denied two clear penalty calls; one a handball inside the box and the second the foul on Messi by Griezmann. Considering Argentina after all lost by just 1 goal difference emphasizes how crucial were those.
The other match of the day was Portugal against Uruguay. Here again having seen Uruguay's play against Russia, it was sure Portugal didn't stood any chance. And true to that Uruguay went up through a beautiful movement between Suarez and Cavani. The ball just followed the aerial route from Cavani to Suarez back to Cavani and then nets; as if there was no one else in the field. Portugal did a bad job in marking Cavani all through his presence.
Portugal equalized in the second half. But again few minutes later Cavani again took advantage of being left unmarked and scored brilliantly by curling the ball away from the keeper's reach into the net. Portugal pressed hard and even there were some close chances but none got converted. Ronaldo got one attempt with a close range free-kick but that hit the wall as well. An everlasting picture from this match is that of Cavani leaving the field with assistance from Ronaldo.
However, it could still be said that Portugal performed better against Uruguay than what Argentina, which on paper is stronger than Portugal, did against France.
It is evident that European football is marching ahead of Latin American with their more professional approach, strategy and thinking. Individual brilliance from Messi or Ronaldo can save a day or two but ultimately football is a team game.
All the top notch clubs are in Europe and European leagues are way ahead in football standards than Latin American ones. Evidently the teams which have more players from these leagues have more chances at succeeding at the world stage. And more over for teams like Argentina with a broken, politically divided and pauper association, achieving success is even more difficult.
It could be the last world cup for Ronaldo. For Messi there are chances than he can feature in one more but till the time there is fresh blood coming into Argentine team and there is a strong commitment from AFA to revamp themselves and the team, very less can be expected to be achieved.
As like many other greats in the past World Cup remains elusive for Messi and Ronaldo.
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