The Big Argentina-Netherlands Preview
Let’s get into the tale of the tape.
Every metric makes Argentina look like one of the giants of the tournament and the Netherlands look very ordinary. The second one is hard to argue against, other than the fact that the full skills of Memphis Depay are only being unleashed in the knockout round after a group stage battling fitness, which could help the Netherlands attack in volume and efficiency. But even with that the Dutch didn’t exactly look dominant against the USA, taking advantage of a some US frailties to pull off some brilliant moves. They still allowed 17 shots, no good team has allowed more than this so far, besides maybe Japan vs Germany depending on your thoughts there.
For Argentina though there is a bit of suspicion of these metrics. They have played some of the worst teams in the tournament in Australia, Poland and Saudi Arabia and the game vs Mexico had a combined 0.6 xG and was decided by two world class goals from really non-threatening situations. The Argentines ripped through the 3 scrubs for the most part (though the Aussies put up a game fight) but had just 5 shots and completed a horrific 22% of their danger zone passes vs Mexico. Mexico did not try to counter with more than Hirving Lozano in this game, you figure Dutch counters will involve Gakpo/Depay/Dumfries/Blind and that the Dutch will try to score.
That’s the other question, how will Argentina defend against a team trying to score? Mexico didn’t try, Poland didn’t try once they realized they could advance with a loss, Saudi Arabia didn’t really try, and Australia bunkered a lot of the game as well. The Netherlands have occasionally not tried to score (whatever happened v Ecuador where they took 2 shots) but you assume they will counter here.
Maps
Progression here refers to how many fields gained per ball loss a team gets…the color is how well the attacking team progresses and the defending team has defended this area compared to WC average. So Argentina should have a lot of smooth progression around the Australia box in this example.
Fields gained is a way of measuring how much of the field you are eating up: if you are 10 yards from goal and make a 5 yard pass, this is 0.5 fields gained. The same is true if you are 100 yards from goal and make a 50 yards pass.
I have tweaked this to boost sideways/backwards completions in dangerous areas, previously you got 0 credit for a sideways completion 11 yards from goal which makes no sense.
Right sided attacking play has been wildly over-represented, even with Messi sort of “removed” as John Muller did in his great Athletic piece here:
This is mainly due to di Maria’s and de Paul’s progression dominance. De Paul stays right in the midfield and is 96th percentile in progression, 97th in receiving while no attacking player has progressed the ball more than di Maria has. He seems to be ready to return from his injury. Argentina’s left side could struggle in buildup where left back Marcos Acuna has been shaky relative to other Argentina players and the Dutch pressure has been relentless.
Nothing in the metrics so far suggests the Dutch will progress the ball well against Argentina’s press. The schedule strength arguments (Argentina hasn’t seen anything like the Dutch could be) make me think there could be chances for Netherlands that don’t show up on the spreadsheets.
Passing Clusters
No surprise here, guy called Messi seems to have ball gravity.
I suspect the game vs Qatar, which was a massive statistical outlier where Netherlands just passed around a ton makes their clustering stuff all weird.
Argentina have been tough to breakdown, a strong defense mixed with unambitious and poor offenses against leading to lots of side to side passes mixed with low percentage long balls.
The Dutch let you bring it into midfield then try and make you “stick” out wide in the attacking half but in area that is not very dangerous.
Attackers
The big secret of this World Cup is Messi has surprisingly little created from open play, either as a shooter or passer. Steven Bergwijn has more. di Maria has also fallen into this bucket of enormous progression at incredible efficiency without much end product.
Depay’s receiving ability and all around end-product (shot builds, xg + xa) is well ahead of every other Dutch attacker, he is absolutely the main man on this Dutch team.
Berghuis and Mac Allister show up here but really play more as midfielders.
Midfielders
De Paul has been absolutely immense down that Argentina right that has more outgoing traffic through it than the Autobahn to Italy come vacation season. His zone has also been very hard for opponents to progress through, build shots through, and he is taking the ball away a good bit.
Dumfries big game vs the USA probably has created a false feeling around his tournament. He has taken 1 shot and created 2 chances while having under 2 touches in attacking buildup per game. His efficiency has been awful, but the US gave him some space and he took advantage of it. Don’t confuse that with having been a great performer this tournament, which he has not outside of being a quite good outlet forward.
Blind on the left has been much more efficient with the ball.
De Jong vs Enzo in the middle of the pitch will be very tasty…de Roon is projected to start alongside Frenkie , both he and Koopmeiers have been horrific offensively and basically there just to man mark someone.
Klaassen has been poor moving the ball but has gotten involved in lots of shot building moves in his time on the pitch.
Defenders
Interesting that right back Nahuel Molina shows up here, a decent bit further back than left back Acuna. Molina has been much more efficient with the ball than Molina but that is likely due to aforementioned Stau in front of him, and I guess you don’t need a right back bombing forward when you already have de Paul, di Maria and Messi up there. Molina has been rarely seen in defensive action as well, look at his takeaway percentile rate.
Nathan Ake has struggled in the air in this tournament, of all players with 6 or more aerial wins (80 players), he has the lowest aerial duel win rate. He has his typical City efficiency numbers here, similar to Stones who has simply copy-pasted their absurd progression from club to country.
Otamendi has won the 2nd most aerial duels in the Cup, and at a very high rate for a guy who might have a case for all World Cup center back if Argentina keep playing like they do and roll to the final.
Romero has seemed oddly subdued for Argentina compared to his usual aggressive, all-action style at Spurs.
The Rundown
Argentina seem likely to be without de Paul or using a severely limited version of him which will be a big miss, the guy has done a ton of progression and defending. Will the replacement, likely Paredes, mean the Argentines are easier and more open to play through for the Dutch counter?
The hope that the Dutch attack is just miles ahead of what Argentina have seen so far, mainly due to Depay and the loss of de Paul will de-stabilize the Argentina defense feels just like that to me, a hope. I expect the Dutch to get a handful of breaks, but not more than that.
There will be a lot of Argentine possession, and a lot of Argentine possession down the right, especially if di Maria plays (and especially if de Paul can gut it out). The Dutch have been quite terrible at preventing shots so far, but pretty decent at preventing good ones: can they stick Argentina in these areas 40 yards from goal and not let Messi find Alvarez in between the lines.
Ideally you’d want Messi further forward in a game like this, letting Mac Allister, de Paul/Paredes and di Maria doing more of the progression from midfield toward the box with Messi popping up more in the box to shoot.
It’s easy to see a game where Argentina tilt the field quite well and pile up 15+ shots of below average quality while the Netherlands basically hope de Jong/Blind/Gakpo/Depay turn a couple of the half-break chances into a high quality goal. The 90 ends roughly 1.4-0.8 xG for Argentina.
The bookies say
Argentina is 61% to advance. I think this is overrating a beautiful Dutch move vs the USA and the Dutch name, I like Argentina more than that number and will be investing. The last investing tip I gave you was Spain was safer than IBM, the Saturdays on Couch guarantee. So keep that in mind before you shift your crypto to Argentina.