Argentina became the second South American team to reach the semi finals of the 2014 world cup after Brazil had made it to the last four last night beating Colombia. Argentina got better of Belgium by a scoreline of 1-0 to book their place in the last four.
The only goal of the match came in the 8th minute of the match when Gonzalo Higuain scored for Argentina from the penalty box area. Belgium played a chasing game for the rest of the 90 minutes as they failed to create any clear goal scoring opportunity. The Argentine keeper Sergio Romero barely had to make any save although the Belgians dominated possession over 90 minutes. Their long ball policy did not work out at all as the there was no proper holding play in the midfield for the Europeans. Quite naturally Argentina clung on to the lead with ease. Argentina also got few chances to extend their lead, with the best had fallen to Lionel Messi in the dying minutes of stoppage time but Courtois pulled off an excellent save to deny the Argentine captain.
It was somewhat a pale finish to a promising campaign from the Belgians. The dark horses of this year’s tournament, as labeled by many critics, failed to make even the semis while Argentina made it quite comfortably with lots of questions over their defense. However in this sweet win over Belgian the only thing that will keep the Argentina coach Sabella worrying is Angel Di Maria’s injury. He had to be substitute in the early minutes of the match for an injury in his thigh muscles and was seen on the bench with ice-packs. If Di Maria doesn’t get fit in time it will surely be a great loss for Argentina for he has been playing wonderfully in the midfield and has proved to be the backbone of this Argentina line-up.
Tags: Angel Di Maria’s injury Argentina Argentina into semis Belgium FIFA world cup 2014 Gonzalo Higuain Lionel Messi in Sergio Romero World Cup 2014