World Cup 2018: Left alone on the sideline, Jorge Sampaoli attempts to mastermind Argentina win over France

Argentina progressed to the Round of 16 thanks to a scarcely believable win over Nigeria. But a feeling of discomfort between players and coach, of a balance of power that is tilted, endures

By now you will have seen Lionel Messi’s breathtaking goal against Nigeria multiple times at a variety of speeds and from different angles.

You have likely also seen Marcos Rojo’s winner, the right-footed hammer blow that sent Argentina through to the knockout stage, a number of times.

What you might not have seen, though, is the celebration of the latter. Well, you’ll have seen Messi arrive and jump on Rojo’s back, with the Manchester United defender so pumped, so coursing with adrenaline, that he carried one of the greatest footballers ever about 30 yards before the team, substitutes and assistants all caught them for one enormous pile.

But what you probably didn’t see was Jorge Sampaoli’s celebration, as sad and lonely a moment as there has been in this global feast of football.

Setting off joyously, the thought process is written across the coach’s face. He deviates from his course, turning away from the direction of all the players and he loops round alone, only really getting acknowledgement - or a peculiar look - from the fourth official.

Having been so close to the precipice, this was obviously an enormous moment for the Argentina coach but the days of bitter recriminations and toxic accusations in the preceding week had seen him sidelined as an irrelevance, with many people believing - though not completely true - that the players had selected the team and formation to play Nigeria.

A select group of players had engaged Sampaoli in a long discourse over the gameplan for that crunch final group encounter but they insist it was the usual, that coaches need to know what their players are comfortable with and one of the results of that was the lack of pressing and deeper backline.

Yet that feeling of discomfort between players and coach, of a balance of power that is tilted, still reigns. Sampaoli’s first response in his press conference on Friday was to blurt out that “the players haven’t yet been informed of the team.”

A limp attempt at asserting authority if ever there was one.

How the team to play France will look has obviously become a big question after such drastic change in each of the opening three fixtures. Didier Deschamps can have few certainties about how Argentina will line up and should instead plan for individuals, though the France coach has shown little evidence of any plan so far in Russia.

Deschamps has underwhelmed with a historically-loaded squad of France players at each of the last two tournaments, flaming out in Brazil and ultimately striking out in a home tournament to a Portugal team that lost Cristiano Ronaldo in the early exchanges of the final. This might be his last chance, with this World Cup being played under the shadow of the newly-unemployed Zinedine Zidane and a third-consecutive disappointment likely to trigger a new regime.

The World Cup-winning midfielder - Deschamps, not Zidane - has few selection headaches but for Sampaoli nearly every position is a migraine, even where Messi might play.

Messi functioned better in a more withdrawn role on the right against Nigeria but in Cristian Pavón, the young Boca Juniors forward, Argentina have one of the revelations of the tournament. Pavón must start but his position is exactly where Messi so thrived last time out and thus there is talk of the Barcelona forward being moved to play as a false 9 to accommodate the explosive young attacker.

Now despite his success there with Barca, Messi has never played as a false 9 for his country. It makes sense, after all, the Argentines are so overloaded with centre-forward talent in Gonzalo Higuain, Sergio Aguero and Paulo Dybala that they have been able to leave out players like Mauro Icardi, who has been one of Serie A’s top strikers for the past few seasons. But with France coming up, the return to the position that won him so many trophies at club level may be just the tonic for some of Argentina’s issues and hold a magnifying glass to some of the French weaknesses.

Has Jorge Sampaoli been left out in the cold? (Getty / Independent)

With France likely to play a higher line than any opponent Sampaoli’s side have come up against thus far, the ability for Messi to drop into holes and find runners going beyond him is going to be key to breaking Les Bleus’ defence down. Pavón’s speed in behind and tendency to play vertically rather than side-to-side will give the Argentines an element their attack has lacked when he hasn’t been on the field, with Angel Di Maria looking a cowed shadow of his former self and running into so many blind alleys it is as if he couldn’t read the Russian street signs.

Ever Banega and Javier Mascherano will retain their places in midfield and Rojo, the hero of St Petersburg, will surely keep his in a defensive line that is still creakier than an old door.

But there is little Argentina can do now to fix the defence. It is a personnel issue, more than anything, but the back four that played last time appeared much more confident with Franco Armani in goal and the decisive late winner from Rojo was actually set up by Gabriel Mercado, the versatile but ageing defender who might yet struggle to cope with France’s pace.

If Argentina are to beat even a rather underwhelming France side they will need to fire on all cylinders and it feels increasingly, after poor displays from Higuain and Aguero, that shifting Messi centrally to inject Pavón’s speed and unpredictability into the team is the right move.

Whether Sampaoli does that, or whether he even makes that decision anymore, is yet to be seen.