Christopher Benítez Cuartas

UPDATE (2024.08.07): Jersey Sporting News closed on August 6, 2024. This link is to an archived version on the Internet Archive.

For Jersey Sporting News. Link to the original article here.

On Tuesday night, Argentina sealed their ticket to the final as they overcame Canada in a clean 2–0 full-time victory. The 80,102-seat MetLife stadium witnessed goals by Julián Álvarez and Lionel Messi in each of the halves.

Argentina Weathers Canada’s Initial Push

Maple Leaf’s opening minutes saw relatively slow, confident passing play until sudden Argentine interruptions came. Jacob Shaffelburg attacked from the left wing diagonally off Cyle Larin in those first ten minutes. By minute 7, Larin had retreated from this formation. Jonathan David and Stephen Eustáquio had stepped up, but by now, the strategy was obvious and quickly dealt with by the opposing defense.

Moïse Bombito and Shaffelburg were also active in procuring corners and free kicks by intentionally delaying some of their advances, though this yielded mixed results. By now, Shaffelburg’s unifying position had become wobbly enough, and the Canadian formation became one of attacks whenever possible by anyone at hand.

The Argentines were not particularly in hard mode yet. Ángel di Maria was the only noticeable attacker via crosses in the first fifteen minutes, except for one instance where Lionel Messi attempted a straight shot on goal that was blocked by Maxime Crépeau.

Seeing their crumbling, the Canadians then focused on having several players — defenders or otherwise — cluster around key Argentine players such as Rodrigo De Paul, Di Maria, or Messi, a blatant contradiction of Jesse Marsch’s statements the previous day at the press conference.

By minute 11, the Albiceleste had ensured possession at 72 percent to 28. By the end of the half, Lionel Messi started spilling out the verdict with two shots.

However, the goalward moves started to show sometime around minute 21, with long shots by Julián Álvarez. He would score in the 22nd minute after a close-up shot was deflected by Crépeau and slid back under his arm after it bounced past Bombito’s attempted tackle-save. As expected, the New Jersey crowd roared.

The goal hurried up Canadian play but in no concrete direction. Possession was at 63 percent to 35, an incremental improvement. Still, the disorientation combined with constant slow-passing and safeguarding from Argentina left no room for regression for the CONCACAF side.

Argentina did find ways to adapt by the last ten minutes. Nicolás Tagliafico constantly attacked the left to correspond to Di Maria’s crosses from the other side. Supplementing this was a string defense held by Alexis Mac Allister and Gonzalo Montiel. On the other hand, Canada began an attempted restructure too late, the only noticeable difference being that David and Bombito were made hubs. However, this did bear fruit, as the possession at halftime was 59 percent to 41.

Argentina Silences the Maple Leaf

Jesse Marsch’s men got into clusters again for the second half. This did mildly impress the Argentines, albeit not enough for them to reconsider their current strategy of push forward-and-shoot. One embarrassing moment came at minute 48, as Bombito chipped the ball down to David, who passed on the ground to Shaffelburg, got intercepted by Eustáquio, shot, and blocked by Emiliano Martínez. The man, noticeably much to his surprise, would be quite busy the whole night, especially in the second half.

The match’s second goal came at minute 51, with Enzo Fernández shooting after an attempt by Ismaïl Koné to intercept, only for the ball to bounce off of Messi’s boots. Two minutes later, he would be knocked down and crucially kept in despite the fact.

At minute 55, Shaffelburg would be replaced by Ali Ahmed, who would prove equally important to what was left of the Canadian offense. The rump of the offense was David and Larin, left unaccompanied as Mac Allister and Montiel kept the ball for more extended periods than usual.

From here, the erratic tone of the match drove the Maple Leaf into spirals, with constant substitutions, advances by Álvarez, Di Maria, and Messi, and unprovoked injuries that left the referee busy. Possibly the most notable of them came at minute 77, when Marsch himself received a yellow card for an apparent interaction with de Paul as he lay on the ground advocating for a foul. The match ended with a resounding 2–0 for the champions, ending the most unexpected run in recent Copa América history.

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