Fresh off of one of the worst performances in decades, Argentina find themselves in shambles.  As of Thursday afternoon, the local media were reporting the possibility of coach Alfio Basile stepping aside due to inner conflicts and lack of response from the team the news would be confirmed hours later.   Basile’s irrefutable resignation had to be accepted by Julio Grondona and the rest of the Argentine Football Association.There is a lot of blame as to why Argentina is in the situation they are in.   But the player that will  get the lion’s share of the blame is going to be Lionel Messi.   The Barca player is the one that embodies everything that the Albiceleste stands for.  Skill, talent, explosiveness.  He is the posterchild of this national team.   This is why he will also be the one that will have to receive most of the darts from the players’  standpoint.   One of the biggest images that told everything about Messi’s role with the team.  He stood out on the pitch, with his hands on his hips looking at his teammates battle the Chileans in complete futility.  If there is one knock on Messi’s game is that he is selfish, very selfish as a player.   Sometimes for good, sometimes for bad.  
There are others involved in this fallout, but Messi’s ultimate care- himself got the team in trouble.   It was fine when he was the one scoring the goals and making the plays, but Argentina needed something like a Chile game in order to really hit the point home.  Argentina are a team that were saved by their individualism in many games.  So Messi’s tactical disobedience, Tevez’ blow ups, Heinze’s mutiny, Riquelme’s bitterness, and Agüero’s fascination with his father-in-law… all of those examples  are just samples of how a team began playing as eleven players instead of one team.  They were playing for their own personal interests (sponsors) and put them above their country.  That´s part of the reason why there is such a disconnect with the national team within Argentina now.  The fans see the lack of commitment and the feeling is reciprocal.  So for years there has been a very tepid reception towards the national team.     So now for Sergio Batista it will be time to start anew and establish a new set of rules that will no longer treat these divas as such.  This is the ultimate result of going for the European side players.  They aren’t hungry or committed to the jersey despite all the rhetoric that they might give to the domestic media.  It will be time to start all over again and remember what it took some of the teams from the past to achieve the glory this generation has not even sniffed.