Colombia and Senegal played a friendly in Argentina right before the 2014 world cup but yes, I suppose the WC itself was the last.
Look, Argentina needs to suck it up and just play the damn game. If they want to call it useless, a glorified friendly, or any other senseless bull$h!t, be my guest. It's up to the AFA to decide if they want to send their primary team or their U-23 squad, but at the end of the day it's an official WC Qualifying game and a decision has already been made by FIFA. The vast majority of Argentina's home games were played in Buenos Aires. Argentina X Brazil, inexplicably, was played in San Juan, in front of a gigantic audience of 25,000 fans (I'm being sarcastic, in case you didn't notice). The city is 1100 KM away from Buenos Aires, making the logistics beyond complicated. Give me a break. In exchange for their kindness, I think Brazil x Argentina should be played in the middle of the jungle (Manaus, in the mouth of the Amazon, comes to mind). Fortunately for Argentina, Sao Paulo will get the honors. Maybe Argentina should, in fact, schedule a friendly with Bolivia after that. At least that one I am sure they are going to win.
Lol you have it the other way around. The game was played there because no one cared anymore about the qualifiers at that point with over 10 pts advantage over the other teams. The following home game vs Colombia was in Cordoba for the same reason. Always 3 or 4 games are played outside BA, there is a quota to fulfill with provincial governments I believe and it wasn't possible before because of pandemic. The logistics are equally bad for Arg, they always train in Buenos Aires regardless where they play. They had to take a flight just like the opponents the day before. You sound like you are a bit desperate to get a W vs Argentina but "Era en el Maracaná" Hope you win and lift the cup of imagination afterwards.
It was played in San Juan cause AFA wants to take the beloved NT to stadiums all over the country. Theres no disadvantage (as in altitude, heat, humidity) to play in San Juan, so the La paz comparison is ridiculous. Actually, players have said they rather play in BsAs instead of travelling, but this was done so people from other provinces could see Messi and co. And the "At least that one they are gonna to win" attempted tease is pointless, since Argentina is 33 consecutive games (over 3 years) without losing
Hahahahahahaha. Well, congratulations on finally winning something after 20 years of misery. After collecting trophies in the last 20 years, I am glad to know we have a worthy opponent in South America once again. By the way, your friends in Chile said hello. All jokes aside, the word is that the game took place there because of political reasons (the AFA president is from there). They just wanted to throw a big party to celebrate their qualification for the World Cup. Beating Brazil would have been the icing on the cake, except that they forgot to tell us about their plans. Regardless of the nonsensical underlying reasons, I would agree that at this point this game doesn't add much to either team, but a decision has already been made and all the tears in the world are not going to change a thing. It looks like they are trying to move the game to Europe, and FIFA already approved the request. This should give an opportunity for either of these teams to book a second game in that window, if they can find decent opponents. Given the circumstances, it's a win-win situation for both parties.
Iran is supposed to play Senegal Sep 27 in Austria. Morocco plays Chile and Paraguay in September Rumors Portugal will play Nigeria And Ghana will play Switzerland in November before the WC in Abu Dhabi.
Just in case it hasn't been mentioned here before: On September 24, Mexico will take on Peru over in California.
Reportedly CBF has, on Tite's request, accepted a FIFA and AFA proposal to not play the Brazil x Argentina match in September. While it hasn't been made official yet, CBF is already scheduling friendlies for September in Europe and supposedly has Tunisia as one opponent and is looking at Algeria as a likely second opponent. In fact, it is possible the Algeria match would be in Algeria. So the long Brazil x Argentina postponed match nonsense is over, and Brazil gets to play a very good CAF team and one of CAF's World Cup participants. On the Brazilian side, it was first reported by ESPN BR https://www.espn.com.br/futebol/sel...-cancelado-selecao-busca-novo-adversario-data But quickly picked up and confirmed by others: https://ge.globo.com/futebol/seleca...-x-argentina-de-setembro-esta-cancelado.ghtml September is looking a lot more productive for Brazil who until this news came out, was having trouble getting potent opponents for a friendly in Brazil.
Strange Brazil went for Tunisia and Algeria who are nothing like Cameroon. Probably more similar to Switzerland.
They definitely also tried Morocco (also not necessarily like Cameroon) who eventually said no (not willing to wait for Brazil to sort the situation out) and reportedly have contacted others but no word on who and how far those efforts may have gone.
I dunno why, bug I have the impression that Brazil game would've been a better warmup for the WC than those two games.
A good way to keep their undefeated streak, going into a major world tournament Their last defeat was against BRA, too.
Better warmup? Argentina doesn’t need warmups at this point. It’s the same team as the last 3 years, nothing is really being tested out. The “warm-ups” have already been played vs Brazil, Italy, CA…. It’s better to play light friendlies 2 months before the WC than to unnecessarily risk injuries and expose tactical plans. Nothing would have been gained from an Argentina-Brazil game before the WC and a lot could have been lost for no reason, hence why Tite and Brazil were so adamant about canceling the match
The starting XI is already decided and players will pick up competitive form with their clubs anyway. Only a team that hasn't found the right lineup or that has a recently hired coach needs friendlies.
Um... you know AFA signed up for a friendly with Honduras, right? Hope everyone remembers their shinguards
Argentina tends to play low-profile oppositions ahead of World Cups. They never play big teams very close to the tournament.
As those of is that follow Concacaf would know, it’s a risky game for Argentina lol. At least they wont play in central America
In addition to what loco said, the match would have been an official WCQ. Suspensions for accumulated yellows and for reds would carry over into the WC itself. Additionally, there was absolutely no will on either side to play the match. It wouldn't have been productive. The last party interested in holding it was CBF's president and the coaching staff finally convinced them it wasn't a good idea. Ghana on the 23rd, possibly in London, TBD. Tunisia on the 27th, likely in Paris, but still TBD.
Qatar is hosting a 4 nations tournament, obviously with no euro based players involved, Jamaica, Ghana, and Morocco all using domestic squads while Qatar seems to be pretty much full strength. Results so far. Qatar 2 Morocco 2 Qatar 2 Ghana 1 Morocco 3 Jamaica 0
Actually Qatar is not hosting the tournament, the games are being played in Vienna, Austria if I'm not mistaken. Oddly enough, the Qatar Stars League, where all these players play, is up and running in full so it's been a pretty lopsided start to the league with Al Sadd and Duhail, who have dominated the last decade of the league, getting off to poor starts without their national team player. We may have a surprise league champion such as Al Arabi or Wakra. They are playing about a dozen friendlies in Austria. Nothing scheduled for here as far as I know.
9/23/2022 - Korea Republic vs Costa Rica (Goyang, Korea) 9/27/2022 - Korea Republic vs Cameroon (Seoul, Korea) I wished we would've had friendlies away from Korea this time around but oh well.
It seems opinions on hosts Qatar are very much divided. I saw everything from guys who picked them to advance as 2nd to folks who picked them to get clapped and finish on 0 points. I'm for now in the middle. I believe they will leave their mark in the opener but don't have enough to advance ultimately.