Vela outpaces Argentinean defence but fails to have overall impact

By 1970’s Gooner

Mexico failed to impress last Wednesday night playing in front of 68,500 extremely vociferous fans in San Diego. They also played in front of a quiet and pensive looking new manager, a certain Sven Goran Eriksson.

They went down 4-1 as Argentina outplayed them in almost all areas of the pitch producing beautiful football creating and scoring goals as if form another planet.

The second and fourth goals, especially the second scored by Lionel Messi was pure poetry in motion.

The ball was moved around the Mexico penalty area and finally a low cross from the left was put into the box.

The oncoming forward dummied allowing the ball to run between his legs only to reach the oncoming Messi who just side stepped it into the net.

A truly wonderful goal and the type that you would expect to see Arsenal scoring.


Carlos Vela was played up front in a double pairing with Sergio Santana.

The partnership didn’t work as the two could not strike an understanding. They were described in the Mexican press as playing like a divorced couple!

The interim Mexico coach, Ramirez, also criticized the more creative aspects of his team especially the forwards:

“The score doesn’t reflect the level of play of Mexico and Argentina. “The different factor was the quality of forwards” he said.

Nevertheless Carlos had one great chance to open the scoring as early as the 7th minute.

He cleverly positioned himself in between the two Argentinean central defenders and received a through ball which enabled him to get a clear run at the defence.

He duly outpaced the defenders and the on rushing goalkeeper (who collided in their desperate attempt to catch up with him) only to see his diagonal shot at the unguarded goal go agonisingly just wide.

You can see the goals and Vela’s miss on the video on the right hand side of this page.

I can see what Arsene Wenger means when he says that Vela has more of a future as a central striker rather than a winger; like Eduardo he said.

Mind you he said that about Walcott yet he still played him mostly on the wing during this last season. And to my mind vela will probably feature on this side of the pitch rather than centrally.

Argentina opened the scoring in the 11th minute when Burdisso’s shot past goalkeeper Oswaldo Sanchez.

As mentioned above Messi added the second, Maximiliano Rodriguez the third from close in and Sergio Aguero the fourth in the 71st minute.