If Miguel Ángel Lemme was hoping for a response after the opening day defeat to México, he will be sorely disappointed after watching his under-17 side completely outclassed by Germany and facing likely World Cup elimination at the group stage.
Argentina’s youth sides were once the envy of world football but after the under-20s exited the World Cup earlier this year at the first stage, the under-17s look almost certain to share their failure. The defeat to México highlighted a real lack of collective organisation and an almost non-existent strategy of attack and against a superior German side, these flaws were ruthlessly exposed.
It took Germany just five minutes to breach the Argentine defence when the impressive, Felix Passlack squared the ball from the left, and Mats Kohlert rolled the ball into the path of Vitaly Janelt to stab the ball past Marcos Peano.
San Lorenzo youngster, Germán Berterame came close to an equaliser when his long range effort rattled the crossbar but in truth, Argentina’s only hopes of scoring came from speculative efforts like this and Germany could already have been two or three up.
Inevitably, the superior side did double their lead and Passlack was again the creator, leaving Johannes Eggestein with a simple finish. Before the first-half was over, German dominance was assured when Julian Ferreyra brought down Salih Özcan and Passlack rounded off his decisive 45 minutes by sending Peano the wrong way and giving Germany an unassailable lead.
With the match already won and the European side playing at a canter, Argentina finally enjoyed more of the ball but could still not prevent Vitaly Janelt sliding in a fourth. The defeat could have been worse and Argentina now sit bottom of Group C with only Saturday’s match against Australia remaining. Automatic qualification to the knockout stages is already out of the question and only the slim hopes of qualifying as one of the best third-placed teams remains. However, with a woeful goal difference of -6, that looks highly doubtful.
First round exits at both the under-20 and under-17 World Cups this year will be an embarrassment and the only hope would be that it might serve as a wake-up call to the AFA, whose neglect of the youth divisions has led to this systematic failure.
golazo argentino 