Argentine NT: News, Stats & Players [R]

I can’t say I agree with the goalkeeper selection. Why were Musso, Rulli and Benitez all left out?

Likewise, I can’t believe that Funes Mori and Casco made the final eleven ahead of Romero.

The midfield and attack selections are good.

 

Given the circumstances and injuries, this is probably as close to the best team we have. Maybe Romero or Garay in defense....but other than that, pretty ideal.

We need to mesh, and play as a team. That should be the major goal right now. Hopefully we schedule another friendly, and play training friendlies against some youth teams if we have to.

I would like Di Maria in the midfield or the right.

Our mid/forward line should be good with Palacios—Lo Celso—Di Maria—Aguero—Messi.

But like others have said, we need a true defensive midfielder whose primary job would be to protect the defense. And I don’t think Paredes is that player.

Otamendi-Pezzella is not the greatest Center back pairing in the world, but hopefully they can hold down the fort for us.

Right now, we have to focus on playing as a team.

 

Garay is currently injured and it’s a question mark if he’ll even play in the CdR Final. So who knows, even if he was a regular for us he would’ve been called.

 

So more or less, probably the best lineup we could have come up with.

The one thing that does concern me is that we only have one true defensive midfielder. If Guido gets injured, then I am not sure how we are going to cope in a positional sense.

 

Anyone know what Battaglia's injury is exactly and when he could be back?

I don't understand how Dybala gets called up. He's been in really poor form. Icardi would be much more useful. De Paul, Messi and others can swing in really good crosses to an Icardi type player. It would really give us another dimension to the attack. Really a shame that Scaloni never got around to experimenting with this.

Also, the GK selection is atrocious.

 

According to Ole, this is the most likely starting XI

------------------Armani/Andrada
Saravia------Pezzella------Otamendi----Tagliafico
-----------------Paredes------Lo Celso
-----Palacios-------------------------Di Maria/Pereyra
------------------Messi----------Aguero

https://www.ole.com.ar/seleccion/seleccion-scaloni-equipo-copaamerica_0_EihbEtIPz.html

 

I hope Tagliafico will not making those overlapping run that he did in 2018 WC. He should just focus on defending, his shooting is weak and he's not fast either ... also, Otamendi will gets killed by counter attack.

 

Ascacibar should have been called up. It’s not his fault that Stuttgart have been shocking this year.

 

Well, if they do end up getting relegated after the play-off then he needs to go to a club where he gets top flight football. Can be laboring around in the second division if he wants to be called up in the near future.

Look at the resurgence Lo Celso has had when he’s moved to a new club. I’d like to see him stick around in Germany. No point going to the EPL and playing for the Burnley’s of the world.

 

Andrada has been playing lights out for Boca, singlehandedly keeping them in several games. Pretty good distribution
as well. Whether that translates to the national team remains to be seen, but I thought he deserved the callup. Can't speak for the other keepers.

 

IMO any premier league club would be a step up from Stuttgart.

 

My only concern is going into another league with a different culture and language. Players need to stick around and adapt, especially if the culture is vastly different from what they’ve grown up with. If he moves to Italy or Spain then fine but I’m not a fan of young players bouncing around league to league. They tend to go into the abyss and lose confidence.

 

A bit off-topic. But the 2022 World Cup will NOT be a 48 team World Cup.

Thank god.

 

But we still gonna see Argentina vs Nigeria.

 

And we'll still beat them no matter how bad we are and how good they are.

 

There's a reason why African nations never make it pass round 16 or QF. They always find the way to conceides more than they scores. A match against African national has never been tactical battle.

 

That's how he got a hattrick against Ecuador and sealed our WC spot. His goal against Nigeria was another example... set him up with a good ball and he will score.

I never like the idea of Messi playing as midfielder/traditional playmaker cause he dont have stamina and strength to run tirelessly and shield the ball the way Tevez, Maradona, Riquelme or Iniesta does . He's great at making piercing run towards the goal and that's how we should utilize him.

Its amazing that even after beating Ecuador, Sampaoli still reverting back and played Messi deep in midfield as playmaker. He was completely shutdown by multiple players against Croatia and spent the entire game literally walking around in midfield.

Midfield looks strong on paper but chemistry its still a question mark based on recent friendlies.

 

We also won Olympic twice in 2004 & 2008 but there's no denying that between those period , we produced more talented players than in last 10 years.

 

I feel like with Paredes, we’ll get run over defensively.

Not that Paredes is a bad player, but his skill set is not as a pure defensive midfielder. We need a pure defensive midfielder with that line-up.

 

If you have high energy midfielders who can play box to box like Palacios and Lo Celso, they can provide support on the defensive end.