Players Of The Future?

We were by far best today as well, as expected. Again, really like our left back, Escobar from Velez. Should beat Fiji around 10-0, judging by the other results.

 

Shame Nigeria isn't in it, just isn't a World Cup if we're not playing against both them and Mexico.

 

❕ Barça is monitoring 17-year old forward Thomas de Martis. @albertfc11 #Transfers 🇦🇷

— Reshad Rahman (@ReshadFCB) November 12, 2025

Would be a good move for both

 

Looks like Mexico finally beat us.

 

Like it or not, Argentina has always been bad to average at u17 tournament. In fact, they never the reach the final in this competition. 2023 edition was probably the best u17 we had.

 

He had an awful tournament. Typical mediopelo from Lanus, club that hasn't produced a single elite player yet despite their overhyped academy.

 

Placente has taken the youth teams, since the u17 in 2023, far but he hasn't won anything
in the official fifa youth tournaments.

Four major tournaments with the best talent and he hasnt' won anything. The loss to Germany, to Mali, to Morroco, the loss in focus later in the sudamericana and the terrible performance against mexico, when before that they would dominate in group stages and early rounds. Shows he doesn't have a clue how to run a team properly. His biggest weakness was alway defense. Being down 3-1 to Germany before Agustin got a hatrick, losing 3-0 to mali in the 3rd game, the performance in the sudamiercana later stages, getting scored four goals by Morrocco and mexico.

I don't like this mentality how we're just using the u17 and the youth to develope them for the bigger tournaments. You're not guranteed trophies when you're a senior team, and with a losing mentality in the beginning you need to have a championship mentality.

I've been listening to Aimar, Placente talk at these levels and it's very holding by the hand nurturing, but you have to go out there and win. Brazil has 14 sudamericana, 4 u17 championships. They just go out and win

Pekermen won 5 world cups, because he was a winner at this level, he developed beautiful football and he won.

The developement programs still needs to improve

the question you have to ask of Placente is why do your teams not perform the same at the end as you start? Why is your game plan so terrible when you need to win. What is this seleccion of players you take to defend. Do you know how to defend ?

 

Vamos gente.

Let’s not pretend! Pekerman had a Ferrari compared to what Placente’s driving right now. Half the kids he wishes he could call are already being guarded by European clubs like crown jewels. For Argentina (and every big fútbol nation), youth tournaments stopped being serious. Our best pibes are already with senior squads, and those clubs would rather adopt a stray dog than release a blue-chip Argentine talent for a youth competition. Also, our best youth players are good enough for senior call-ups, and bypass the youth tournaments. Pekerman won U-20 WC with guys like Messi, Tevez, Aguero, DiMaria, etc. I am not saying that we don't have top talent, I am saying that guys at that level rarely go to many youth tournaments; specially if the club season is on-going.

So yeah… judge Placente with a bit of context. He’s not choosing from the full pantry, more like the leftovers after the clubs raided the fridge.

 

there's also 4-5 players he didn't call up from the local league that he was criticized for before this tournament began. Players that helped him win all year in qualification and friendlies

Also i hate this loser mentality that 'youth tournaments stopped being serious'

I'm not calling you a loser, I just hate the mentality

 

Looked like he was fighting with the ball everytime he was near it. Weird decision by Placente to start him today. Was absolutely useless every game he played.

 

This is true. We played the u20 as did Spain & France did to be fair with a B side effectively given we had nine first choices missing through unavailability & injury.

The side controlled the match against Mexico for half a hour and did not take full advantage. They scored two streaky goals after having shown nothing. We equalized and couldn't get the winner. We seriously lacked a 10. The modern 10 is just as essential and as Paz will prove in due course in committing players, dribbling past players.

Esquivel played well throughout. de Martis was a huge disappointment. Maybe his nervous system is catching up to his growth so I wouldn't be too harsh on him but Placente should have gone with Jainkoiski.

We should have won the previous u17 when we thoroughly outplayed the winners Germany. The number of chances we wasted in that game and then were not mentally right when we played Mali.

 

Also, this Gómez Mattar that some of you were hyping up before the tournament. Judging by showings in Qatar he has some way to go yet

 

Youth tournament hardly matters in grand scheme of things. You dont see the likes of Enzo, Julian, Mac, Cuti and Lautaro winning silverware at that level. Then you have someone like Mauro Zarate who scored the winning goal in 2007 u20 final and Maxi Moralez who scored 4 goals in that tournament but ended up playing Russia, Mexico and MLS.

Do you remember guys like Cardozo & Oberman who won u20 in 2005?

 

Look, when it’s game time, I’m all in on winning too. I’m not saying the tournaments doesn’t matter, but what are the results really telling us?

If we’re going to break down the results, just to assign blame or concerns, we should probably start with the full picture. Hard to judge a youth team too harshly when half the best players are watching from their clubs, isn’t it? I judge Placente based on what he had to work with. But if he failed to callup available players, he should be blamed for that.

He's no Pekerman, but he is not Mascherano either

 

Couldn't watch as much as I wanted to but I guess it wasn't a great idea to have Placente manage both teams with the tournaments being weeks apart from one another.

 

Watching Rosario they have a young cb that looks interesting only 18 and playing a key game

 

Nice to see he looks unaffected by his injury. The referee should have given the prat of a keeper a yellow card for instigating a potential fracas.

 

Is that Juan Gimenez ? He's a Rolls Royce of a defender. Badly missed at the u20 World Cup.

 

No, Giménez is injured - did his knee in mid August.

Ignacio Ovando is the "new" young CB as far as I can tell.

 

Ya sadly gimenez is out until the summer.