Sunday 13 June 2010

Tévez off to winning start

The first current Manchester City player involved in the World Cup was Carlos Tévez, who played in Argentina's 1-0 win over Nigeria. He started in a fluid front three along with Lionel Messi and Gonzalo Higuaín, tasked with working the defenders to free up space for his compañeros .

He did this fairly well, as Argentina started brightly and created chances, going 1-0 up through Gabriel Heinze. But as the game went on Argentina seemed to lose some of their coherence, and the chances they did create owed more to Messi's individual brilliance than any cohesive team play. As Veron tired Tévez started to drop deep and centrally, as he does for City, to create chances. He put one perfect ball through to Higuaín in the channel inside the left back, but the shot was saved. And later on he carried the ball in a four on two break but put Messi in when Ángel di María might have been a better option.

But it was a decent game from Carlos and a fine attacking performance from Argentina. They face a fiercer test from South Korea on Johannesburg on Thursday lunch time.

MCFC Academy Graduate Dickson Etuhu played in midfield for Nigeria, and couldn't lay a finger on Messi.

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