Five minutes later, Argentina were unfortunate not to be back on level terms when a header from Juan Sebastian Veron found Juan Roman Riquelme in space but his shot came off the post.
He can rarely have played better than in the first 45 minutes, when he wrestled control of the vital midfield area from his Manchester United colleague Juan Sebastian Veron.
But the real drama is likely to take place in the heart of midfield where Lazio team-mates Juan Sebastian Veron and Diego Simeone come up against Dennis Wise and David Beckham.