A late goal from\u00a0Marcos Rojo\u00a0gave\u00a0Argentina\u00a0a 2-1 triumph over\u00a0Nigeria\u00a0in their final Group D match here on Tuesday as the two-time champions entered the\u00a0FIFA\u00a0World Cup pre-quarterfinals.<\/p>\n
Rojo scored the winner for\u00a0Argentina\u00a0in the 86th minute after Victor Moses\u2019 penalty conversion in the 51st minute had cancelled out Lionel Messi\u2019s strike in the 14th minute.<\/p>\n
Following the win,\u00a0Argentina\u00a0have four points in total and they are second in the table, behind Croatia, who have nine points. The other two teams in the group,\u00a0Nigeria\u00a0(three points) and\u00a0Iceland\u00a0(one point) have crashed out of the tournament.<\/p>\n
Argentina, who were on the brink of elimination after playing a draw against\u00a0Iceland\u00a0before a disastrous 0-3 defeat to\u00a0Croatia\u00a0in their first two matches, started the match against\u00a0Nigeria\u00a0with one point in their bag. They knew that despite a win against Nigeria, who were also in contention, their spot in the Round-of-16 is not guaranteed as Croatia, who had already qualified, played\u00a0Iceland.<\/p>\n
Argentina\u00a0head coach\u00a0Jorge Sampaoli, who had got a lot of stick for his formation of the team in the first two matches, fielded a classic 4-4-2 formation, featuring wholesale changes to their starting 11 comparing with the game against\u00a0Croatia\u00a0when they lost 0-3.<\/p>\n
Argentina showed a lot of urgency, both up front and at the back as they began to prowl inside the Nigerian box from the start.\u00a0Gonzalo Higuain\u00a0and\u00a0Angel Di Maria\u00a0pressed high on Nigeria\u2019s box as they looked to make the best of their first appearances in the starting XI.<\/p>\n
It took only 14 minutes for the Argentines to break the deadlock. Messi controlled with his thigh a long-range aerial ball from the centre of the pitch from Ever Banega before barging into the box and firing to the left corner of the net despite being pushed towards the right side by\u00a0Kenneth Omeruo.\u00a0Banega, who was not there in the starting XIs so far, had already repaid Sampaoli\u2019s faith.<\/p>\n
Messi then provided a delectable bass from the right with a cross which put\u00a0Gonzalo Higuain\u00a0on one-one-one situation with\u00a0goalkeeper\u00a0Francis Uzoho\u00a0but the\u00a0Juventus centre-forward\u00a0couldn\u2019t overcome the Nigerian goalminder in the 27th minute.<\/p>\n
The Argentina\u00a0captain\u00a0almost doubled the lead when\u00a0Angel Di Maria\u00a0won a free kick 25 yards from the Nigerian goal on the left for Argentina in the 33rd minute after being fouled by\u00a0Leon Balogun.\u00a0Messi\u2019s left-footed shot hit the post after\u00a0Francis Uzoho\u00a0made a left-handed touch.<\/p>\n
Both sides didn\u2019t create a lot of chances during the rest of time in the first half, with Nigeria hardly testing Argentinian\u00a0goalkeeper\u00a0Franco Armani, who as brought into the playing XI in place of Willy Caballero.<\/p>\n
Four minutes into the second half, Nigeria were awarded a penalty after\u00a0veteran holding midfielder\u00a0Mascherano\u00a0was penalised for holding Balogun inside the box while defending a corner.\u00a0Chelsea winger\u00a0Moses fired the spot-kick to the left as Armani dived to the wrong side.<\/p>\n
Argentina lacked control in the middle of the pitch and Nigeria\u2019s confidence got higher and higher as they tested the former\u2019s resolves with several incursions inside the box.<\/p>\n
Armani was later tested by a piledriver from\u00a0Wilfred Ndidi\u00a0from 25 yards out as the ball went over the cross-bar. Another chance came Nigeria\u2019s way as Odion Ighalo missed a golden opportunity to score on the volley after Rojo\u2019s header fell on his shoulder and moved towards the African attacker. Seeing the ball way off target, Ighalo later appealed for a\u00a0handball\u00a0penalty but the\u00a0Video Assistant\u00a0Referee (VAR) thought it otherwise in the 75th minute.<\/p>\n
Nigeria\u2019s hopes fizzled in the 87th minute when\u00a0Gabriel Mercado\u00a0galloped down the right flank and sent a cross to the middle of the box. Rojo met the cross on the volley as his right-footed strike sent the ball to the right corner of the net to give Argentina the 2-1 lead.<\/p>\n
Afterwards, Argentina, somehow, managed to hand on to their lead as they secured a spot in the second round.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A late goal from\u00a0Marcos Rojo\u00a0gave\u00a0Argentina\u00a0a 2-1 triumph over\u00a0Nigeria\u00a0in their final Group D match here on Tuesday as the two-time champions entered the\u00a0FIFA\u00a0World Cup pre-quarterfinals. Rojo scored the winner for\u00a0Argentina\u00a0in the 86th minute after Victor Moses\u2019 penalty conversion in the 51st minute had cancelled out Lionel Messi\u2019s strike in the 14th minute. Following the win,\u00a0Argentina\u00a0have four […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35397,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35396"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35398,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35396\/revisions\/35398"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}