Messi leads Argentina to 2-1 win

Lionel Messi struck a trademark wonder goal as Argentina edged to a 2-1 win over a plucky Bosnia in their Group F opener at the Maracana.
The mercurial Barcelona forward put what appeared to be a laboured performance behind him to slalom past a number of challenges and place a brilliant finish into the corner on 65 minutes.
As expected, Argentina switched to a 5-3-2 from the 4-3-3 they used for much of qualifying, with Gonzalo Higuaín being replaced by Hugo Campagnaro. Higuaín was not fully fit which, with Rodrigo Palacio out with a calf injury, perhaps in part explained why Alejandro Sabella had made the change. But it still seemed baffling, particularly given that Bosnia, having used a 4-4-2 through most of qualifying, had spent their warm-up games preparing to use the 4-2-3-1 they did ultimately deploy. Sabella was a devotee of 5-3-2 when he led Estudiantes to the title and the Copa Libertadores but the danger of using three central defenders against a lone centre-forward is that, with two spare men, one is left redundant,according to websites.
Thoughts of unease, though, were swiftly banished by an incident that had little to do with tactics. Messi floated in a free-kick from the left, Marcos Rojo flicked it on and the ball cannoned in off the unfortunate Sead Kolasinac.
Before this tournament, the last Bosnian to kick a ball at a World Cup had been Faruk Hadzibegic, playing for Yugoslavia, who missed a decisive penalty in the shoot-out - against Argentina - at the end of the 1990 quarter-final. Given everything Bosnia has been through in the 24 years since, it seemed desperately cruel that the next decisive intervention, just three minutes into their World Cup debut as an independent nation, should be an own-goal.
Argentina were solid rather than spectacular, which is Sabella's way, but it still felt rather anti-climactic given both the potential of their forward line and the narrative of the tournament so far.
Messi had the sort of game he has had a lot recently. It would be wrong to say he was peripheral in the first half, for Messi is never peripheral, his every touch shimmering with menace, but he certainly was not as dominant as he can be at his best, the attentions of Muhamed Besic forcing him to drop deep, which left Sergio Agüero at times rather isolated.
The 21-year-old Besic, who in 2010 replaced Pjanic as the youngest player to represent Bosnia, had a fine game, both screening his defence and distributing sensibly. He often played the short pass to Pjanic, but occasionally looking long to Senad Lulic on the left flank. He was offloaded by Hamburg to Ferencvaros in 2012 after an incident that led to the manager Thorsten Fink grabbing him by the throat.