Argentina National Team coach Edgardo BAUZA commented on the team’s number 9 position.
BAUZA stated that he has three players for the center forward position. Here’s what he had to say:
“The starting number 9 is HIGUAIN. PRATTO is someone I know well and he’s done well. ICARDI will be called-up if something happens to the other two (HIGUAIN, PRATTO) as he’s our third center forward.”
https://www.whoscored.com/Articles/OFjBI04iW0OTNh0AgNn6VQ/Show/Six-Primera-stars-that-could-top-European-shopping-lists-in-January
Acuna,Dirussi,Ascacibar ‘n Alario are topping z list to join European elites this January.
The whole thing about Argentina not trying out new players is just a myth. I can see why many here keep on saying Argentina doesn’t try out new players all because their favorite son Icardi is not on the team.
Here are all the players that got called up for Argentina post Brazil world cup 2014, I might have missed a few but so be it.
Agustin Marchesin
Nahuel Guzman
Santiago Vergini
Nicolas Gaitan
Leonel Vangioni
Roberto Pereyra
Cristian Ansaldi
Federico Fazio
Willy Caballero
Jonathan Silva
Mateo Musacchio
Ramiro Funes Mori
Lucas Orban
Geronimo Rulli
Federico Mancuello
Milton Casco
Gonzalo Rodríguez
Matías Kranevitter
Ángel Correa
Paulo Dybala
Gabriel Mercado
Gino Peruzzi
Jonathan Maidana
Victor Cuesta
Lucas Pratto
Marcos Acuña
Fernando Belluschi
Guido Pizarro
Lucas Alario
Call up as many as you want but how much actual game time do they get? and any thing less the half a game is really an exercise in futility and a waste of time.
Simply put we have wasted far to many friendlys and that is why the n.t is in the state it is in today
Pablo,
I even think that any thing less than 2 full game for a new player is waste of time. We know very well how many chances need some players to show what they actually can.
Agreed, a couple game is a minimum to let them at least get a feel of the system
excuses excuses and more excuses not to try other players.
anyway although faced with so much adversity and trying to lose on purpose I hope that the players find a way to win in 2018.
I believe we can win.
Current players won us 3 runner up 😛 it’s look like manager,federation and many fans content with it.So why change?
The constant focus on attackers and strikers on this blog is one of the sole reason Argentina continue to struggle as a collective team. I mean, how many more forward does one team need? Higuain, Aguero, Pratto, Vietto, Dybala, Correa, Alario and Icardi are all attacking players. What about some upcoming standout promising midfielders for a change on the Argentina NT? Argentina recent development put way too much emphasis on attacking players and less effort in developing potential world class/top rated midfielders. It’s easy to come on here and write how Player ‘’B’’ scored a hat trick or how player ‘’A’’ scored a goal. What about the other aspect of the game? Argentina won’t win the world cup in 2018 by having the 10 best strikers in world football. Instead of this constant focus on strikers their needs to be more focus on building a more balance coherent team.
Why is it that nowadays Argentina doesn’t have talented midfielders that re good enough to play for elite clubs like Real Madrid, Barcelona and Bayern? Why is it that Argentina home grown midfield players are always over looked by the big clubs for other nationalities? There haven’t been any major Argentinean CM/CDM player signing for a top club in Europe since Gago transfer to Real Madrid and Mascherano transfer to Barcelona. Look at the depth in quality the other top national teams have when it comes to midfield options, Croatia is a perfect example.
This is the reason why guys like Mascherano and Biglia are constantly call upon, Argentina lack depth for quality midfielders when compare to the other major world cup contenders. Lamela was supposed to be a bright spot for Argentina but he is so wishy washy. As for Pastore, he never seems consistent enough whenever he was called up to play for Argentina. Guys like Pereyra has been tried and tested multiple times under Tata Martino and is yet to convince anyone. Pereyra today wouldn’t even be call up for the English or Italian national team, so why does is name comes up so often here? Pereyra wasn’t able to stay at Juventus and fight for a place. You know why? Because he is just decent at best and would have never gotten ahead of Sami Khedira and Claudio Marchisio. Look if Pereyra was any good he wouldn’t be playing for a mediocre Watford club, the only thing keeping guys like Pereyra in England (playing for Watford) and not the Argentina Primera is the billions of dollars being poured into the EPL. Juventus off load Pereyra and brought in Pjanic who they see as better in quality. So again, the likes of Pereyra and Lanzini are not quality contenders to be playing for the Argentina senior team at this present time.
Now we are left with less technical players like Enzo Perez and Augusto Fernandez who have a tendency of turning over the football because of their lack of playing technique. And this is where Enzo Perez always seems to get in trouble because he is either lashing out or aggressively trying to recover his own unforced turnover which sometimes lead to a yellow/red card. Nevertheless, I would like one of either Enzo Perez or Augusto Fernandez on the team but not both. Argentina would struggle against any good technical team be it European or South American if both Enzo Perez and Augusto Fernandez are in any starting XI.
Kranevitter and Perades are promising players but I don’t see what they would add in the Argentina midfield. They’re not even in the ‘’world class to be’’ or ‘’top quality to be’’ category. Backwards, sideways passing and slow pace does little to improve the Argentina national team midfield. If they had the skill and technique of Xabi Alanso or Modric then I would have no problem starting these guys over Biglia, but as for now, none of these players can tie Biglia shoe lace even though I have been critical of Biglia in the past.
Biglia is a fine player, he is asked to do stuff for Argentina that he doesn’t do for his club team. Biglia is a CDM, the coach can’t all of a sudden have him playing like Xavi or Riquelme for Argentina, that’s just not his role. The same goes for Mascherano, he plays CB/CDM for Barcelona but whenever he is called up for the Argentina national team he is being ask to play a little more advance going forward which he barely does at Barcelona even when he has the opportunity to go forward at times. The only time I see Mascherano goes forward in an attacking role for Barcelona is when the team is playing desperate for a goal, other than that, Masche is constantly stuck between the half line circle and his goal area. So how does the Argentina coach expect Mascherano and Biglia to show up for the Argentina national team and play a completely different role than what they’re use to at club level? This is why Spain and Germany were successful, all the club players like Iniesta, Xavi, Lahm, Kroos, Ramos etc. had to do was go about their business with the national team like they would for Barcelona, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich which makes the job of their national team coach mush easier. Busquet is not ask to play as an attacking mid for Spain because you have Ineista, Silva, Mata, Koke and Santi Carzola to fill that void for Spain.
Beyond Masche, Gago and Biglia Argentina haven’t had one or two CDM/CM in a long time who has come of age to take over from the more senior players. This is where our struggle lies not in attack. The Brazil game is a perfect example; if Argentina had Icardi, vietto, Dybala and Alario against Brazil the score line would have been the same or worse. A striker doesn’t always score a championship winning goal, just keep that in mind.
No point to add any more man. The problem is far worse than people claim. U guys can bring Crespo, Bati goal or Mario Campas;believe me none will serve in the current crap midfield argentina is going through.
Kid, I will keep mentioning Peryera with out carying much abt how Juve threated him. Juve paid 90 million euros for higuein ‘n decided to keep Struato ‘n lenam(??) Some crab like zat above Peryera. Due really think any of zose are better zan him? Pjanic is a different player zan him ‘n more reminsent to Banega/Beluci not Peryera. After all u indeed know Pjanic is bought to replace Pogba zan Vidal ‘n Peryera.
So, to round my point up Petyera, Banega,Augusto, E.perez Dybala, Pastore are z players ready to play with Leo along with who ever is partnering peeferably Alario/Pratto, depending on z weakness ‘n strengtb of z openent team. Just keep Maria till he resumes his confodence ‘n class as a sub. Also Ansaldi ‘n Mercado,though ovetaged to lead z flank.
Juve is a non sense team zat w’d keep Struato ‘n Lamina ahead of Peryera ‘ n weird enough to pay 90£ for Higuein(with all due respect to him as am one of z persistent devil advocates of him).
So, don’y cloud ur judgement based on Allegri’s stupidity who took a bad record of Juve starting season(2015/16) starting season games to notice z importance of Dybala last season,who really saved his a**.
Plus,if u are suggesting z dinasour combo of Mascie ‘n Biglia as z soln to z current mess of midfield; I beg to ask how w’d zis same shit be z solution for every lose z team has gone through to z last 3 finals?
We already had Pereyra, Lamela, Pastore all playing alongside Messi against Brazil in Beijing couple years ago and it didn’t turn out well. That was one of the most disjointed performance from an Argentina midfield I have ever seen.
Argentina midfield worked well when they had Gago in the team. We need a player like Gago or Lucho Gonzalez to complement Mascherano/Biglia in midfield. Right now Argentina is the only big team consistently playing with two out & out CDM. Unfortunately I don’t see Pereyra filling this void. I’m still holding out hope for the right midfielder to complement either Masche or Biglia on the team, someone like either N’Zonzi or Kroos or Khedira.
“Higuain, Aguero, Pratto, Vietto, Dybala, Correa, Alario and Icardi are all attacking players”
so true but its time to see the back of hig and kun-see their is 2 spots already opened plus vitt and cor should be way down the list at the moment.
what we are missing upfront is sensible and intelligent movement and then chances presented taken or at least make the keeper work, hig is simply to static, kun is every where but no where, alario is a promising talent but good to see he has got the feel of things and pratto who I like is a fantastic plan b.
when dybala did play in his correct position he was really good, opening up the defence with his good and intelligent runs with and without the ball.
as for the mids yes they need a dramatic over haul as well so no one is denying that fact but if you strikers are not creating space and intelligent movement then no amount of good balls will change our goal problems. we just need to look at the amount of chances messi creates and guess what…..
Frank Lampard on which City player picked up the most fines: “Aguero picked up a fair few. He just didn’t care. He was so laid back.”
Terrible attitude but he isn’t alone di Maria & higuain have similar attitude but according to Saint masche icardi(I get what I want) attitude is a problem for the team.
Who is Higuain?
Answer – A goalscorer for his club and curse for his country.
Icardi needs a chance to wear the Argentine jersey and he would have given his 100% if he called.
But Bauza has no idea what he has ahead.
Icardi has 19 Goals/Assists (14 goals + 5 assists) in this season and leading the chart in Europe. As per whoscored he’s leading the ‘man of the match’ chart as well with 6 MOM.
Whereas Aguero and Higuain have yet to assist a single goal in the league..!
League Stats:
Messi 68.33 minutes for a goal/assist.
Icardi 85.26 minutes for a goal/assist.
Aguero 101 minutes for a goal/assist.
Higuain 116 minutes for a goal/assist.
What Icardi has to do to get called up? Need to better Messi?
Icardi call up won’t change the team’s difficulty. I know he is world class and even way better than some of the current 9 due to his arrogance ‘n confidence. Yet the team will continue to struggle unless the mid and flank issues are resolved soon. Di Maria has recently get a warning from Emery and Sheik to improve his form and rumours are strong about his relegation to bench as an inevitable as the club did it in the last match where by they won 5-0. Now what if the pattern replicates itself at the National team level? I bet it will benefit both-the team and himself as well. Same goes with Aguero, who shall leave his NT career for Icardi or Alario. Most importantly find some youth and dynamic players to replace Dimaria and Biglia who shall not be regular starters like Zabaleta or Mas.
The problem for me is beyond Icardi call up. Infact,Alario considering his off ball movements could coup well to the existing ineffective mid sector as Lavezzi used to.
Banega Peryera Agusto and Perez are very competent to take over Biglia-Maschie combo and Di Maria’s post;so are Ansaldi ‘n Mercado.
It is hard to argue with people who are obsessed with players and put them before the team.
What we have been doing up to now hasn’t worked quite well.
You suggest that we do the same thing again and again just because change means your favorite players are out.
Putting players before team is just sad.
What some don’t understand is:
– It is wrong to not make decisions based on merit.
– It is wrong to call a player just because he is friends with a certain player.
– It is wrong to omit a player based on his personal life as long as it doesn’t affect his performance on the pitch.
I don’t care if certain players play or not, but saying to a player there is nothing you can do to win the place just because politics is f wrong.
Let me remind you this team doesn’t belong to Amramovich, the Glazers, the Sheiks or a single person, It belongs to every Argentine and its supporters around the world.
Every person employed must put personal differences aside and for the good of his country or team give its best.
It is not personal property of anyone.
I will defend a player when I think he is being wrongfully punished, for your information, I like Higuain and Aguero more than Icardi and Dybala, but I put personal feelings aside and want the latter 2 to play because we must try something new to see if it works better, if not we still can go back to higuain and aguero, but theorizing if certain player pans out or not without trying are empty words, we are not fortunetellers to know without truing it.
I am open minded, I don’t think any playing style guarantees you will win. There is a tendency that all you have to do is copy a style of a certain successful team and you are settled. In my opinion this is wrong because to implement that system you don’t have the players, so the solution is to implement a system that fits your players.
I was not against Tata’s formation, I was against him because he chose the wrong players to implement it!
Possession football with biglia, mascherano in midfield and 4 centrebacks, players without movement is like ordering Bolt to compete 100 swimming instead of running.
live and die for your players but the truth is we haven’t won a title in years.
I don’t know why you said Sabella was not world class. Mascherano said he’s a top-top of a coach. He took an average team to win copa libertadores, and almost took down Barca on the club worldcup. I’ve never seen any coach outclassing him from the time he took the national team. He also took a team with lots of surprise out-of-form players to a Worldcup final and almost won it. If Gago and Di Maria were healthy and in-form in 2014, I can tell you we would have a very big chace of winning the world cup, and without that much struggle.
On the other hand, I must admit that his football is a bit boring, but we can’t deny his calibre. Bielsa blended with Sabella would be perfect, but it’s unreal.
Sorry, reply in wrong place
“theorizing if certain player pans out or not without trying are empty words, we are not fortunetellers to know without truing it”.
Fyou Tevez, he is brilliant nowadays: “Carlos Tevez’s putative £32m-a-year Shanghai deal will make him not just the world’s best paid footballer but best paid team sportsmen ever.” And propably Gago will be the next in China…
I mean, for the people here; Dybala, Icardi, Kranevitter, Soto, Perades, Tagliafico, Correa etc. are all legends, who need these ”old guys” when you have never before seen talents like this current crap of Argentinean ”young players”, just put all these legends on the pitch already and Argentina will win every tournament ever exist!!
All Dybala penalty miss proves is that he is just another Argentinean player.
“All Dybala penalty miss proves is that he is just another Argentinean player”.
ergo, after this logic
“All Messi penalty miss proves is that he is just another Argentinean player”.
Wow, Dybala mentality strength is probably a myth, first time he has big pressure on his shoulders in his career, and failed immediately twice, the easy chance in the last minute, plus the important penalty in the shootout. I’m very sad…and that was only a supercup…
NoHateOnlyLove
Congratulations for being friendlies world champion!
It’s a prestigious award…no it’s not! and nobody gives a f about friendlies expect us, while others test we play the same players losing precious time.
Diego86
It’s not about players, it’s you have to earn it and not to be given a place just because you are friends or have connections with someone.
f injustice!!!!!
I will never support injustice.
Sabella was, is and will never be world class! just like Bauza he ruled unjustifiably and in the end it cost him. the only reason he had success was because some players he wouldn’t dare benching got injured and he was forced to play the remaining players so the formation got better defensively by lacking any threat in attack, then he gave in to pressure by taking out lavezzi and puttting in Aguero.
just rule based on merit and put a balanced team out there, how hard is this to understand
I don’t know why you said Sabella was not world class. Mascherano said he’s a top-top of a coach. He took an average team to win copa libertadores, and almost took down Barca on the club worldcup. I’ve never seen any coach outclassing him from the time he took the national team. He also took a team with lots of surprise out-of-form players to a Worldcup final and almost won it. If Gago and Di Maria were healthy and in-form in 2014, I can tell you we would have a very big chace of winning the world cup, and without that much struggle.
On the other hand, I must admit that his football is a bit boring, but we can’t deny his calibre. Bielsa blended with Sabella would be perfect, but it’s unreal.
This is where Bauza makes no sense and I am surprised the media in Argentina asks nothing.
Why does Icardi have to replace Higuain or Pratto? You call 5 forwards and Icardi should be in top 5. Once he is there you give him chances whenever possible and see how he fairs. There should be a desire to improve and look for options. But he does not want to try anything. Lets say Higuain gets a red now, so he has no option other than Pratto. He does not even know if Icardi can play with the team, since he has never even practiced with the team.
The problem is Argentine media and public. Not Bauza. In today’s world media and public can ask a lot of questions. But they do not. And there is a reason for that.
Argentina and England does not win anything and they have one thing in common: People are more interested in club football over NT. They care more about Boca, River, Tevez etc. than national team. When they don’t have anything to do, wait there is a favorite pass time – blame Messi!! Unless people and media start demanding more from idiots like Bauza, it will continue.
Mundo has always been obsessed with a certain player to be called up, then we get disappointed thereafter. First Pastore, Lamela, and now Icardi. Yes, we should call up Icardi, but calling replacing Higuain immediately is too much. Higuain is one of the few players having good chemistry with Messi.
Don’t blame him again and again. The truth is the team collectively and consistently failed during the last 30 years. Our midfield failed to create enough chances in the last three finals. I was pretty sure that taking Higuain out, we still lost the three. We used to have the best midfielders in the world (Veron, Requelme, Aimar, Ortega, …) and we failed. We have the best forwards in the world (Messi, Aguero, Tevez, Higuain, …), and we failed too. We had a world class coach in Sabella, we failed too …
Well said Diego. The problem is not upfront it is in the mid and flank fields that the coach need to remedy. Overaged and non creative players especially in mid field is wasting the talent of the forwards especially Messi who unlike the other forwards is sharing the role of the mid players too.
It’s not about Icardi. It could be Alario or even Benedetto replacing Higuain and Aguero. They can have 3 or 4 worst games of their lives and they still wouldn’t have done any worse then those motioless shit pieces higuain and aguero. What chemistry are you talking about between Messi n Higuain. They have played more than 10 years together and that is a lifetime in football. And how many time have combined to score important goals in important matches? The sooner we see the back of that baldy higuain, Aguero, Di maria, biglia, mascherano, and that hore son Bauza the sooner we will start to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Agree..”Our midfield failed to create enough chances in the last three finals”
Still, Higuain should have scored those easy chances in the Finals. At least in one..:(
I agree the mid needs to be revamped but facts are facts and hig 3 final misses (4 if you count the pen miss) show us we need changes upfront. Its all good to be scoreing in lesser matches but w.c games and finals are tight were chances them selves are at a premium and that is were we need a striker who is a killer in front of goal.
Icardi could not do worse then hig did, hig could have given this team all time status as one of the great teams with a treble of wins instead…sigh… and still hig is their.
Higuain must be replaced by Icardi
agreed
Bauza should have long gone… dumbest decision to make him a coach…
.
Messi jeopardizes his own world cup crown with this clown of a coach.
Hi Chalz,
How are you? How is your life in OZ?
Hey buddy… allz well by The Grace of God… trying to settle down but all in God’s Hands… not easy… expected it would be tough… lets see…
.
Hope you are settling down well
We simply deserve all the bad things that happened to us, we our our own biggest enemy.
hurting the team on purpose and we just take it like a domestic violence victim and make excuses violator.
the only reason I don’t rule out winning the World cup is players like Messi can beat teams on their own even with all the adversity they face.
Argentina is ranked number one on the FIFA rankings because the team had won 10 out of their 15 games in 2016 which includes 3 defeats and two draws. They’re the most consistent national team in the last three years.
good old stats, as we know we were really poor in quite a few of those wins and got lucky but as they say a win is a win but sadly it all means nothing as we still have won nothing at all.
And that’s how it is with any professional sports, nothing is as straight forward as fans want it to be. I can assure you that if Argentina had tie all their group stage game at a given tournament like what we saw with Portugal at the Euros you same folks would have been calling for all the players and coaching staff heads. You pose a question earlier on why Argentina still remains number one in the FIFA rankings and I gave you the reason why, it has nothing to do with who wins what tournament. If Argentina can be really poor and win a tournament I would take that any day over fancy football. Portugal won a tournament by being poor in majority of their games. Greece won a tournament by being poor, boring and defensive. So from those 10 games Argentina won in 2016, if they can win a tournament of seven or six games playing the same way I would gladly celebrate with the team. Nobody remembers how you perform at a tournament in the long run, what sticks in people’s mind is the championship winning title. Brazil performed poorly during the 2002 WCQ campaign and they went on to win the world cup.
yep pro sport is some times not at all fair.
we had 3 bites at the cherry, we learned nothing from each loss and thus paid the ultimate price-sadly it was ground hog day x3.
Bauza u are w***e’s son. If something happens to one of them.mofo. as if they score left right and centre. Y the fuck should u wait for something to happen to them to give another guy a chance. Bauza mother has no brain but dog shit in her head. Son of hore.
wow yet another excuse grrrrrrr,
please some one make my xmas and fire bozo and I know its wishful thinking he would take over the n/t but sim and ath it seems will be parting way by the end of the season.
btw for what It means and I have no idea how but we finished no1 in the fifa rankings this year,
The so called senior players are the ones who are blocking icardi and bauza is puppet like tata.
I doubt simeoni will take over i think he will go to inter but if he does it will be on his terms and the bullshit(like not calling deserving players) will end IMO.
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