Argentina face an anxious wait over the next five days to keep their tenuous Football World Cup hopes alive.
After drawing with Iceland in their tournament opener last week, the two-time champions were humiliated 3-0 by fellow European contenders Croatia - a result that seemed to sap the spirit out of their players.
Locked together 0-0 at half-time, the Croatians took advantage of an embarrassing goalkeeper blunder from Willy Caballero to open the scoring.
Cabarello tried to chip a rolling ball clear, but undercut it badly, leaving Ante Rebic open to slot home.
Luka Modric bamboozled the defence to curl home a second with 10 minutes remaining, while Ivan Rakitic took the wind completely out of the South Americans in the first minute of injury time.
Even superstar Lionel Messi may not be able to save Argentina from an early exit. They must hope Iceland slip up against Nigeria on Saturday morning (NZ time) and then produce a convincing performance against the Africans next week.
After Argentina's heaviest pool defeat in 60 years, coach Jorge Sampaoli was quick to take the blame for his team's predicament.
"It's not the boss' partial responsibility - it's his total responsibility," insisted Sampaoli.
"It's not right to blame Caballero. If I had planned things differently, it would have worked out differently.
"I honestly thought the plan for this match was going to put pressure on the opponent. After the disaster of the first goal, it was tough - we were lost emotionally."
Messi, who guided his team to the final four years ago, was largely marked out of the game by the canny Croatian defence.
Again, Sampaoli seemed to be falling on his sword.
"Our driving force is Leo, but we couldn't find him," he claimed. "We work as a team to get the ball to Leo, but also the other team works to avoid that.
'It's the driver's responsibility, everything that happens to the team is due to the leadership. Leo is prejudiced by not having, in us, drivers as good as him.
"There is shame - pain - at not delivering for the Argentine people. It's been a long time since I felt like this and it's happening with the shirt of my own country.
"I say sorry to all the fans who made such an effort to come to Russia. I shared their dream - I did the best I could."
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