Messi may have to do it all alone against the Dutch

A leader is a dealer in hope. Napoleon Bonaparte

With a confident 1-0 victory against the Belgians in the Quarter Finals, Argentina has surpassed a huge mental barrier on its own - The Quarter Finals. A look at the rich Argentinian history at the World cup shows that the two time World Champions have stumbled at the last eight more often than any other country. From 1986, when the knock-out stages were officially introduced as we have now, Argentina have exited three times at the Quarter Finals. The two times they managed to get past their Quarter-Final opponents, they have managed to reach the tournament finals. Now that's a nice statistics to focus as Argentina needs a lot of history to back them up when they meet the Dutch on Wednesday. Since the 1990 World Cup, Argentina has never managed to go beyond Quarter Finals. In that sense this team has already succeeded where many of its illustrious predecessors failed. But then for this team led by the Mercurial Lionel Messi anything short of the ultimate triumph is a disaster.

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Messi May Have to emulate Idol Maradona to take Argentina Past Belgium

It's not what you achieve, it's what you overcome. That's what defines your career. Carlton Fisk

Quarter-Finals, that has been quite a dreaded word in every Argentinian football fans dictionary for some time! There is rather good reason for it too. In three of the last four tournaments they featured, they made unceremonious exit at this stage. And funny Messi was an integral part of all the three. In 2006, José Pekerman's decision not to bring a young Messi drew huge criticism and it's safe to say that it resulted in their exit. In 2010 World Cup it was Messi's inability to inspire his team which resulted in an absolute thumping at the hands of Germany, which also took the only entertainer in the competition, Diego Maradona out of sight. The case was no different in 2011, even though Tevez was one who missed the penalty; Messi's lack of effectiveness was questioned as Argentina failed to make a fist of the challenge thrown by eventual champions Uruguay. So yet another Quarter Final beckons; a chance for Lionel Messi to correct a lot of wrong!

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4 Reasons Why Luis Suárez Transfer is Bad for Barca?

• Rumours have become strong about the impending transfer of Luis Saurez to FC Barcelona.
• FC Barcelona is rumoured to have come to an agreement with the Striker for signing a 5 year Deal.

Finally Luis Suárez issued the much awaited apology for the disgraceful biting incident; it came after a lot of denial, strange excuses and may be even fooling the entire nation to stand behind him. For those who watched the incident (even in real time) there was no doubt about what happened on the night when Uruguay dumped Italy out of the World Cup; unless you were an Uruguayan! It was quite a disgraceful incident and the history of the player suggests that he is a walking danger to fellow players on the pitch. One could argue that his early struggles in his life are the reason for such a volatile character; but for the assaulted player that is not any reason for comfort. The inside story about the sudden U-Turn by the player may have a FC Barcelona dimension to it. Considering just days ago even the President of his country openly supported him, the apology came a bit too early. Am not sure how his supporters should feel about this? After all they were the only one who believed his story of "Losing balance and accidently clashing his face on to Chiellini".

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