When Brazil lost 2-1 to Holland in Friday’s World Cup quarter-final the reaction in Argentina was one of great joy. They always love to see Brazil fail, but even more so when it increases their own chance of winning a trophy. On Saturday morning the Argentine sports daily Ole led not with Argentina’s preparations for their quarter-final with Germany, but with Brazil’s exit. The front cover showed a despairing Kaka complimented by the headline ‘Buy an LCD’. The Brazil squad would be watching from home from now on.

Confidence was high ahead of their own crunch clash. Initial suspicions over Diego Maradona’s suitability for the role of coach had been largely cast aside and when he confidently predicted victory in the pre-game press conference few had reason to question his judgement. Argentina had recorded a comfortable 1-0 victory over Germany in a friendly earlier in the year. Now in far better form, surely a semi-final place was little more than a formality.

Things seemed to be going the way of the Albiceleste when Lionel Messi shrugged off an injury that had forced him to miss training earlier in the week to make the starting line-up and it was a confident looking Maradona who took to the bench in Cape Town. Within minutes, though, it became clear this wasn’t going to be Argentina’s day.

A clumsy challenge from Nicolas Otamendi gifted Germany an early free-kick on the left. Bastian Schweinsteiger whipped the ball in towards the near post, Thomas Muller escaped from Otamendi’s loose marking and his goalward header was weakly fumbled in by Sergio Romero. Argentina were 1-0 down within three minutes, and save a good twenty minute spell at the end of the first half were never really in the game from that point onwards. By full time it was 4-0. And it could easily have been worse.

The root of Argentina’s problem was in midfield, where Javier Mascherano found himself isolated by the aimless wanderings of Maxi Rodriguez and Angel di Maria, neither of whom made a significant contribution in the attacking third, and both of whom made little effort to track back to help out their defence. Schweinsteiger was afforded far too much time on the ball to run the game from the middle of the park and Argentina’s full-backs were offered scant protection against the pace of Muller and Lukas Podolski on the German flanks.

But while the major problems were in midfield, it is the performance of Lionel Messi in a off-colour attacking trident that is likely to come under the greatest scrutiny. While La Nacion picked him out as Argentina’s best player in their post-match analysis, Ole’s opinion was somewhat different, their website running an article under the headline ‘No goals, no glory’ in which they lamented Messi’s inability to stamp his authority on the game.

The truth was somewhere between those two extremes. On the one hand, Messi was one of the few Argentine players who looked likely to do something progressive with the ball upon receiving it. But at the same time nothing concrete came from his attempted invention, although it is hard to blame him for that when those around him were so lacklustre. Deprived of Juan Sebastian Veron’s influence from deep and with neither Gonzalo Higuain or Carlos Tevez offering him a suitable reference point to play off, Messi was left attempting quick one-twos with players clearly not on his wavelength.

This writer recently opined that Maradona had got all his decisions right since touching down in South Africa, but in this game he failed to spot Messi’s relative isolation until it was too late. The arrival of Javier Pastore was definitely a positive step, but the game was really crying out for the clever hold-up play of Diego Milito, especially with Higuain and Tevez both out of sorts. Maradona may also look back with some regret on a decision he made before the tournament even began. Otamendi looked every bit the converted centre half that he is playing at right back against the Germans and one cannot help but feel Javier Zanetti would have done a better job in similar circumstances had Maradona seen fit to include him in the squad.

Maradona will now be left to mull over the choices he has made as he deliberates on whether or not to stay on for next year’s Copa America. In the post-game press conference he indicated he would need to speak to his family and the players before making a decision on his future, although his wording seemed to intimate that he is seriously considering stepping aside. The Argentine Football Association tried to persuade Jose Pekerman to withdraw his resignation tendered after their elimination by Germany four years ago, but it is unlikely they would make such an effort if Maradona was to elect to step down after this latest quarter-final defeat.

While Argentina mourned their elimination, there was at least one country that was enjoying the result. Brazilian sports broadcaster Globoesporte perhaps summed up the thoughts of the entire nation when they adorned their home page with an image of Miroslav Klose about to knock in the Germans’ second goal. Underneath it the prominent subtitle read ‘HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!’. It seems the old saying is true – what goes around comes around.