Javier Mascherano saw his Argentina national team suffer more disappointment in the final of a major tournament.
After going into the Copa America 2015 as the favourites to lift the title, Argentina suffered a disappointment in the final hurdle after losing on penalties to Chile. This was the second consecutive disappointment faced by the national team after having lost to Germany in the final of the World Cup just 12 months ago. Mascherano is used to winning trophies on a consistent basis at Barcelona. Hence, to be the runners up in successive major tournaments is hard to take for the defender.
Lionel Messi has never won a major title with Argentina apart from the Olympics medal. Prior to the final against Chile, Messi was speaking about the importance of not being known as the nearly team. Argentina have not won a major title for almost 25 years. Their barren run in the World Cup stretches beyond this period. Despite the presence of big names like Sergio Aguero and Messi, Argentina were unable to break the deadlock in the game finished as a 0-0 draw. Argentina then went on to score only one of the penalties while Chile had four successful attempts.
The wait for a major trophy now goes on and Mascherano has termed it as a torture.“Losing is torture, it’s a huge sadness. Everyone knows what I feel when I put this shirt on. We had a good Copa America, we played a final as visitors and were up to it. Again we lacked that quota of luck to win, I really can’t find an explanation. I’m one of the oldest players in this squad. We have to accept what happened, unfortunately we couldn’t give the fans what we wanted to,” said Mascherano, who might have played in his last major international tournament, after the game.
