3 things Argentina got wrong in the 3-0 loss to Croatia

#1 Lack of confidence and spending too much time on the ball

Argentina v Croatia: Group D - 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia — Caballero had a shocker

If you're looking at Willy Caballero to transform into Ederson, you're barking up the wrong tree. Caballero was lucky to have escaped without much tribulation after gifting Iceland a great chance towards the beginning of their campaign opener, with his severely substandard passing.

Today, he was at it again. In the first half, Caballero tried to initiate an attack from the back by passing the ball across to his left to Tagliafico. But the goalkeeper sold the defender short and Tagliafico got there just in time to deny Mandzukic a clear goalscoring opportunity.

His ridiculous mistake led to the first goal of the night. Mercado was being hot-tailed by Rebic and the defender passed the ball back to Caballero before wheeling away to the flank to receive the pass back. Caballero received the ball and tried to dink it to Mercado but ended up chipping the ball straight up in the air and straight into Rebic's path.

The Croatian forward had no qualms about burying the ball in the back of the net as he punished Caballero with a thumping strike.

Argentina have a mountain to climb. Their players already lack the kindof confidence to dispatch the ball to a teammate quickly enough. If today's performance was anything to go by, you could say that Argentina's campaign looks well and truly over.

About the author

Shambhu is a European and international football journalist at Sportskeeda who focuses on previews, listicles and news articles. An ardent Manchester United supporter since before his teenage years, he started following the Red Devils by age 10 watching MUTV on television. Shambhu is also a highly-revered rapper and a playback singer on Spotify, having a whopping 1 million monthly listeners.

For his articles, Shambhu believes in triple-checking every piece of information, relying on trusted websites like Transfermarkt and Opta, and staying away from speculative publications. He believes that his law degree helped him to be more articulate and meticulous with his content and one of his core strengths is seamlessly involving emotion in his write-ups owing to the love for the sport. For Sportskeeda, has done exclusive interviews with Spanish legends Gaizka Mendieta and Fernando Morientes so far, and his articles boast of a huge readership of close to 50 million.

Shambhu's favorite footballer is Lionel Messi, and the Argentine attaining glory in 2022 is his favorite FIFA World Cup moment. He believes only Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland could replicate Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo's rivalry in the years to come. His favorite manager is Sir Alex Ferguson due to the Scot's unmatched longevity at the top.

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Edited by Akhilesh Tirumala