2018 World Cup: Argentina vs. Nigeria odds, expert picks, insider predictions

European soccer expert picks Tuesday's 2018 World Cup game

Lionel Messi and Sergio Agüero show their dejection during the match against Croatia.

It seems crazy, but Argentina can still win the World Cup. Of course, it needs to progress out of the group stage first, but there are a few permutations for that to happen. Permutations!That’s what an entire soccer-crazed nation is pinning its hopes on. Not Lionel Messi, the best player in the world, or any of its other experienced international players. Argentina is rooting for permutations.

Argentina needs to beat Nigeria on Tuesday and hope Croatia holds off Iceland during their simultaneously played match. Some scenarios rely on goal differential, but that’s the gist of how La Albiceleste can proceed to the Round of 16 and extend its stay in Russia. However, it’s not entirely clear that the players or coaching staff would actually want to spend any more time together. As bad as Argentina has been on the pitch, things are seemingly more miserable off it.

After the nation’s humiliating 3–0 defeat to Croatia last Thursday, reports filtered out of the Argentina camp that the squad had launched a mutiny against its choleric coach, Jorge Sampaoli. Sampaoli has been criticized for his baffling tactics in the tournament’s first two games, and rumors spread that the players themselves would be the ones to choose the team and make decisions against Nigeria. Sampaoli would be little more than a mannequin on the sidelines.

Lifelike, even by Madame Tussauds’ standards.

As with any good controversy, Argentina’s crisis includes leaked recordings. Private Whatsapp audio messages purported to be from former midfielder (and current Atlético Madrid manager) Diego Simeone somehow became public, and excerpts went viral in Argentina.

“Anarchy, no leadership from the staff nor from those that guide her … I see a team that is lost. The team is bad, bad,” Simeone allegedly said. The recordings also contain evidence of the closest thing to heresy someone involved in Argentinian soccer could commit: in one excerpt, Simeone supposedly suggests that Cristiano Ronaldo might be better than Messi.

Midfielder Javier Mascherano refuted reports of an irreversible rift with Sampaoli at a Sunday press conference. “The relationship with the coach is totally normal,” he said, which is what anyone in a totally normal relationship would say. When asked whether or not Sampaoli would be choosing the team against Nigeria, Mascherano hedged and said it would be a cooperative effort. “The best coaches in the world also ask the players for their opinion, because the player is the one who ends up making the decisions.”

Sampaoli, meanwhile, used his pre-game press conference on Monday to fume at something he calls “the virtual world.”

“I don’t live in the virtual world and consume lies and fake news,” he said. “Some people I have to work with on a daily basis are consumed by the virtual world and I have to make sure they are prepared to take part in a match, in their legs and heads, because if you aren’t, you will not perform as well … If you lose a match, you lose, but you don’t lose in the virtual world. Sometimes people make you feel like a criminal in the virtual world because you lost a game or changed a player.”

See? Everything is totally normal.

Messi, meanwhile, has stayed quiet since the Croatia match. Sunday marked his 31st birthday, and a bakery in Bronnitsy, the small town where Argentina is staying, made a life-sized chocolate sculpture to celebrate their famous visitor.

The sculpture sits atop a birthday cake.

Depending on weather conditions and how much chocolate the good people of Bronnitsy can eat, the Messi cake may be sticking around longer than the real thing.