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#2 Nicolas Otamendi
Nicolas Otamendi's World Cup exposed the Argentine defender wide open. After winning the Premier League with Manchester City, he was seen as one of the best defenders in the world and was even named in the PFA team of the year. This makes one truly appreciate Pep Guardiola's brilliance as he took an average centre half and made him one of the best in the league. However Jorge Sampaoli is no Pep Guardiola and was not able to work with the Argentine defender to bring the most out of him.
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He was slow, sloppy, ponderous and rash. He was responsible for 2 out of 3 goals that Croatia scored in their final game of the group stage. If that was bad enough, his performance against France was as bad if not worse.
19-year-old Kylian Mbappe split the Argentina defence into two. The two centre halves, Marcos Rojo and Otamendi were exposed and humiliated, as France ran through them 4-3 to advance to the quarter-finals. Otamendi was meant to be the leader of the back four, the vocalist, the veteran, the enforcer. However, all he really contributed was a few poor clearances, a handful of errors and getting caught out of position time and again.
