Moscow: Lionel Messi’s dream of winning the World Cup now looks remote as Argentina crashed to a 3-0 defeat to Croatia at the Nizhny Novgorod Stadium.
Argentine goalkeeper Willy Caballero in the 53rd minute gave Ante Rebic an opportunity which was hard to refuse.
Rebic sent a volley through Caballero’s silhouette to begin the scoring.
Real Madrid’s Modric bent a wonder strike around a diving Caballero in the 80th minute before Messi’s Barcelona team-mate Rakitic completed the scoring after Croatia sliced apart Argentina’s hapless defence in injury time.
Second-half goals from Rebic, Luka Modric and Ivan Rakitic sealed a deserved victory for Croatia.
Croatia has made space for itself into the last 16 of the World Cup.
Croatia has been in two wins against Nigeria and now La Albiceleste, Argentina.
In order to save itself from humiliation, as per the Group D defeat, Argentina will probably have to beat Nigeria in their last game to avoid elimination.
Talking about the match, Argentina Manager Jorge Sampaoli said the team couldn’t change the course of events.
“We were emotionally broken and we didn’t have any football arguments to make to change the course of events,” The Washington Post quoted Sampaoli as saying.
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Argentina seems to need loads of help. The Argentina Manager said the team played under pressure.
“We’re playing with a lot of pressure for our last match. We tried everything and clearly we didn’t find what we wanted to find,” Sampaoli said.
The defeat leaves the Argentinians facing a repeat of their 2002 campaign when they also went out at the group stage after being tipped as possible World Cup winners.