Very happy that Argentina were able to beat Chile in an absolute shamble of a match. Ref was overmatched from the beginning and the announcers called him out on it right away (on Telemundo). The Medel-Messi double red was a total farce. CONMEBOL and CONCACAF clearly in competition to see who can be worse. This was in stark contrast to the final where I thought the referee did a fantastic job.
Argentina really settled into a best XI as the tournament wore on. Against mini-nemesis Chile, Scaloni went full attack with Messi-Aguero-Dybala up top AND GLC in the MF. Aguero was easily Argentina's best player in this tournament and he took a FK pass from Messi just inside MF to open the scoring. No one conjures chances or turns on the jets in a tight space quite like Aguero. And then GLC played Dybala in with a tricky through ball, Dybala takes a heavy touch, but Arias (wither Bravo?) was woefully late to come out, and Paulo punished him. Paredes had a great match distributing and fighting like hell with the Chileans. De Paul had another good performance of being the box-to-box glue guy. Even Foyth seemed to get more comfortable at RB as the tournament wore on and the competition stiffened--Chile didn't have the speed of Brazil to challenge him. Scaloni has been given the reigns for the remainder of the year--6 matches. I assume that Messi will play in 2-3 of them. Scaloni must continue to build on his system, which if I'm being honest, is likely more just a reflection of the personnel he has. That being said, if Messi does not play every match, Scaloni must decide who he wants to build the attack around, what options he has in MF, and decide how long Otamendi and Di Maria can remain part of the main plan.