The international break is a time to don the country’s colours and show passion and pride wearing your nation’s colours, and Tottenham Hotspur vice captain Cristian Romero is one of those players that approaches these games with more heart and soul.

He was at the centre of things earlier this week for Argentina when they took on Colombia in their final fixture of September’s international break, and while they came out on the losing side, the former Atalanta star was highly praised in his home media for his performance in the fixture.

Romero praised despite Argentina loss

While Argentina came out of Chile’s game quite easily, they came out on the losing side against Colombia on Tuesday night. Wolves defender Yerson Mosquera scored the opener; however, Nicolas Gonzalez netted the equaliser at the start of the second half. However, the stalemate didn’t last for long as James Rodriguez netted from a quite controversial penalty. 

Romero did pick up a yellow card for protesting the penalty a bit too much temper, which means that the Spurs defender will miss out on Argentina in their World Cup qualifier against Venezuela next month (via. Clarin).

Spurs defender praised for containing Liverpool’s Diaz

And despite the defeat, Romero was highly praised by the press back in Argentina for the way he handled Liverpool winger Luis Diaz. The 26-year-old ace was pressing through the middle on his own to contain large parts of the Colombian offence. 

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TyC Sports handed the Spurs defender a six out of ten for his performance against Colombia. They described his outing as:

“The most solid defensively. When Luis Díaz faced him, he neutralised him without problems. As a curiosity, he went out alone to press in the middle of the field on a couple of occasions, and he didn’t do badly, but he wasn’t accompanied by a block.”

This is one of the praises that soon turns into criticisms when things don’t go right, like it did against Newcastle United

before the international break. Romero needs to find the fine line of tuning when to press from the middle and when not to. 

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What do you make of this praise and Romero’s tendencies to press from the middle? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.