Argentina could play friendly against France in March

By
Roy Nemer
-
34
Lionel Messi Argentina France
Lionel Messi Argentina France

Argentina are set to play a friendly match against France in March.

With the match against Italy appearing to be off, the Albiceleste looked to have found a new opponent for one of their two matches in March. According to a report, Argentina could play France in Paris which will be followed by a match against Belgium (although Morocco are still a possibility).

The last time Argentina played the 1998 World Cup champions was in February of 2009 which resulted in a 2-0 victory with Diego MARADONA as coach of the team. Goals on the night were by Jonas GUTIERREZ and Lionel MESSI. Before that came a 1-0 victory in Paris on February 7, 2007 when Javier SAVIOLA netted his last ever goal for Argentina.

One thing I remember the most of the match from 2007 was how Argentina dominated ball possession and moved it around, toying with the French. Here are some clips which I highlyh recommend watching.

Argentina passing the ball around with ease

Javier SAVIOLA’s goal against France

From defending to regaining possession

Transition from defending to attacking

Moving the ball around for fun

Hernan CRESPO chance

Fernando GAGO trickery

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34 Comments

  1. It seems PSG will lose the Argentine trio soon. Reports say Di Maria and Lo Celso left the stadium with anger as soon as the game ended without joining the players’ party, and Javier Pastore talked to Unai Emry for letting him go in the January transfer window.

    The trio were on the bench even when PSG put the game to bed which shows how Emry disrespected them.

    Teams like PSG that don’t have a well established youth development program and tend to use their cash to buy big names always face the same problem.

    The Brazilians at PSG are the ones who control the club most and they had many issues with Cavani, but he kept them at bay.

  2. Sampaoli to watch Classico de Avellaneda especially for Lautaro Martinez (hope also Bustos)

    I hope that means he is not considering Higuain anymore

    Unfortunately the classico will not be so exciting as Independiente prepare for Sudamericana revenge on Wendensday and will field tomorrow their B team arguably.

  3. Sampaoli to watch Classico de Avellaneda especially for Lautaro Martinez (hope also Bustos):

    tycsports.com/futbol/sampaoli-ira-al-clasico-de-avellaneda-para-ver-lautaro

    and I hope that means he is not considering Higuain anymore

  4. Thanks roy for posting those video. I miss so much this Argentina team: Saviola-Crespo, Lucho-Gago-Cambiasso, they really played amazing football when I re-watched this video. Keep the ball and dribbles when necessary but most of the time in 1 touch with lot of moves. A mixed of European and South America style, this is really Argentine football.

  5. It will be an excellent exercise for Argentina to play against France because to me, French national team is probably the best team in Europe right now with Kante as DM, powerful fullbacks able to make the difference, midfielders really box-2-box and fast in transition, agile and smart wingers/forwards who play in 1 touch.

    It will be interesting to see:
    – if our defense can handle the French counter-attack, which is their main force.

    – how Otamendi, Mercado and the wingers going to handle 2 top players on eash side. On the left, they have Mendy and Lemar/Martial, on the right they got Sidibe and Mbappe. I expect an interesting opposition between Otamendi and Mbappe. I remember during the last City-Liverpool, the pace of Salah caused him a lot of troubles. Mbappe is the same type of player but even faster.

    – how our midfielders play against the best in the world. Great players like Rabiot, NZonzi and Bakayoko are not even among their coach’s first choices. If we lost the battle in midfield, our central backs will be exposed to all danger.

    – Interesting tactical opposition between Sampaoli’s 3-3-3-1 and Deschamps 4-2-3-1. 2 coaches with very different philosophy: Deschamps is very conservative and pragmatic. On the other hand, Sampaoli is very Bielsa-type who fights for his idea.

    Seems to me that, comparing to them, our attack Messi-Aguero is the only edge. The result of this game will probably reflect how far we can go in the competition.

  8. 6 goals from France? What kind of bullshit is that? And what is the reality? You are acting like Mbappe is Batistuta, Griezmann Messi and Lemar and Martial being world class who are definately not! And what is the world class defence of France really? I don’t want to be rude man but this is utter rubish and that is the reality!

    I know that we went through difficult times but it should be reminded that we are Argentina and not a fourth grade team, a lion is still a Lion even whet it is wounded and sometimes a wounded lion can be even more dangerous.

    And something else: i assure you that everyone fear us and don’t be surprised if these so called world class teams sit back and defend on us at the world cup. This is something that almost everyone did in the past and that is a fact!

  11. Seriously I thought recently about Argentina – France friendly – would be one of most exciting opponents as we have not played long time against. I was waiting for friendlies against best. Don’t know how many goals they will score against us but we need to see our team on highest level.

  12. “We have Messi and only IF Messi scores we will beat a team”.
    This kinda remarks get me so badly. Of course he will score and who cares IF only he scores and team play around him. Every team has a talisman and their job is to score or play something extra ordinary than others. When people saying those nonsense,it’s like telling SUPERMAN don’t use your super strength. Who gives shit if we win WC and Messi score every goal. Isn’t what David villa did in 2010 for Spain. Ridiculous!!!

  14. France and belgium would be very good tests….just to see how we can deal with superb attacking Teams and whats coming up at the world Cup….hell…two serious trashings coming our way…France should be a devastating loss for us…i think they will score something between 4 to 6 Goals against us…belgium could be a tighter match….probably 1-3 loss as belgium dont defend to good so we could manage to score one Goal against this team

    • 6 goals? Really? Do u think Argentina defenders are school boys?
      It is true Argentina conceded 4 goals vs Nigeria but the players were affected by Aguero’s accident and they somehow underestimated Nigeria’s attack and thought the game was over. The other thing that was affected the team was Mascherano was playing with injury. France is a good team but they also are scared of Argentina’s attack which has just begun to take shape and make opponents worry. I am sure we will see a very different game than the Nigeria one. Keep having faith in the team. Vamos Argentina!

      • we cannot..under no circumstances defend succesfully against mbappe, griezmann, lemar, martial and the attacking fullbacks kurzawa and sidibe….impossible for our back 3….we cannot…under no circumstances keep possession against kante, pogba and matuidi in midfield…ist just not possible…we r to slow with our passing and to inaccurate…we cannot score against their Center backs…unless messi scores there is noone who can beat the backline…ist a fact…u can continue dreaming about winning the Cup and what not glorious things this Team can achieve…but our impressive records over the last 3 years proofs other things…we r in serious Trouble and our Football has become pathetic…mater of fact…glad we have messi because the rest really would be a joke….a very sad and tragic joke….nobody and i mean absolutely nobody fears us or sees Troubles beating us…as proofen by several Teams in the qualification…even on home soil we where just outplayed…and every attack was deadly dangerous for our back…a miracle we r qualified…sorry to ruin your dreams get real guys

        • Correction… nobody wants to see argentina… we have forwards that scored the most goals in the history of the game on one team…more than Peles Brazilian teams, German teams , cryuffs Dutch teams (icardi 26 goals, messi 54, higuain 32 and aguero 33 goals!) last season) and world class players across the board and now a respected coach … and if you know football you know you can’t attack with as many players as a France team would attack Latina or Malta As they would when players like Messi, dimaria and Aguero are on the pitch… but if you are a french fan, that’s kool but get off our site and go to theirs..!

        • Manuel, you’ve made some sensible comments in the past but this diatribe is complete gobbledygook (rubbish); while even bother to blog on this site…join some other site, maybe French site and then promote your six goals prediction. Can you tell us which strong team France has played…

          Here are the games and results, these include UEFA EURO and World Qua-remember France played the EURO at home-:

          France 2-Romania 1
          Switzerland 0- France 0
          France 5- Iceland 2
          Portugal 1- France 0
          France 2-Sweden 1
          France 0-Spain 2
          Sweden 2-France 1
          France 4- Netherland 0
          Bulgaria 0- France 1
          France 2- Wales 0
          France 2- Albania 0
          France 2- Ireland 1
          Germany 0- France 2
          Belarus 0- France 0
          Netherland 0- France 1
          Luxembourg 1- France 3
          France 5- Paraguay
          France 3- England 2
          France 0- Luxembourg 0
          France 2- Belarus 1
          Germany 2- France 2

          So, tell me Manual, which strong team did France scored 4-6 goals against…they were Paraguay in a friendly, Iceland in EURO Quarterfinal, Bulgaria in WC qualification, Netherland.

          Do your research and compare that to Argentina results from Copa America and WC qualification. To think that Argentina is not feared by any team is rubbish…most of the teams talked from South America packed the bus…including Uruguay that even had a strong team…only Brazil played an open game against Argentina. So, my advice to you is let’s wait and see what the result will be in March.

    • Yeah the migthy France who played 0:0 against Luxemburg, LOL…Belgium cannot even handle Mexico and Japan, they are only good vs the semi-amateur teams of the european qualification.

      • France also beat Belarus hardly. They have many young talented players so do Belgium, but both teams seem that their players have no chemistry. Argentina have experienced that same problem until recently but thanks to Sampaoli’s hard work the team is playing as a unit lately.

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