Argentina team practice penalty kicks in training

By
Roy Nemer
-
109
Lionel Messi Argentina
Argentina team in training.

With the knockout stages starting, the Argentina team have started practicing penalty kicks.

The Argentina National Team have went to penalty kicks at least once in each of their last four tournaments. A loss against Uruguay at the 2011 Copa America, a win against the Netherlands at the 2014 FIFA World Cup, a win against Colombia and a loss to Chile at the 2015 Copa America and a loss to Chile at the 2016 Copa America.

A big change for the team is that Sergio ROMERO, a penalty kick expert would not be the goalkeeper but instead Franco ARMANI (unless Jorge SAMPAOLI decides to change that). At the end of the training session on Friday, the team practiced kicks. Here’s a video courtesy of TyC Sports.

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109 Comments

  1. I feel like higuain will start because the last match we played he showed quality to succeed and score for his country. Always back tracking opponents and did much more threat than aguero up front. It could be the height that’s more fearsome ? Aguero plays possession football for years in man city where as higuain needs only that 1 or 2 chances to score a goal without touching the ball in the entire game for Juvie in Series A.

  3. Whatever, the lineup is. I want Argentina to play FAST and in Style.

    I want argentina to play like this:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbLD3P6lXGs

    or even this:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87kyVExZMfY

    We are not a bad team. In fact, we are pretty good.
    We have been to all 3 major finals in the last few years and none of them were lost in normal time. No team dares to play completely open against us.

    What we need to do is to bring a proper balance of experience of seniors and enthusiasm of juniors.
    Along with the senior players we need to blend in 2-3 junior players like pavon, dybala, lo celso etc.

  4. There was one big reason why Sabella dropped Banega from 2014 WC squad in the last moment. He is not capable of playing counter attack. I think the starting XI would be fine for first half. In the second half, Sampaoli needs to put Biglia for Banega, Higuain for Pavon. Then the counter attack system will be good. The third substitution will give Meza for Enzo.

  5. You guys are great in analyzing the match points, each and every individual players.. but right now i am tooooo much nervous for tomorrow’s match.. hope my team Argentina wins… love you guys.. Vamos Argentina

  6. Higuain should start over anyone.He draws defenders away from Messi.He will score sooner or later.Nigeria game during the shot he was on his weak left foot.
    I think our 4 man back line and its sub and Armani are best.I like Taglafico more he always tries his heart out.This is the will determination.We should take care of corners we have best header in form of Otamendi.Rojo and Higuain are good too.Banega’s defence splitting passes are awesome.Messi is in top form in front of goal.Enzo is good box to box.Masche is good in tackling Di maria is fast.We can win the match.

    • Higuain will score sooner or later? I’ll tell u when he’ll score, in September in the 3rd round of Serie A 2018/19 and then he’ll hit a purple patch.

  7. Again Sampaoli going for same mistake playing Higuain on front in place of Aguero. Everyone knows normally Higuain is not big match player and a predictable and nervous. But Aguero will score goal if he find ball in the box. And he is energetic and perfectly fit with Messi. Most importantly he is not nervous by any tough defence or goal keeper if his first shot didn’t go well.
    Higuain has not good ball control.
    Secondly against team like France Argentina need to control the match even if they don’t have to the ball. Players need to be focused on Griezman and Pogba near the box. Players need to believe in themselves and stay calm and improve If anything wrong happened earlier minutes.

    • Both Aguero and Higuain are not worth a place in any of the 32 teams playing in this WC. They are pieces of shit none of us should even waste our time talking about. Not just them but ever single player in our squad except Messi. From here on and till the end (or may be we will put out of our unbearable misery tomorrow itself) we are gonna live on hope and that hope is Messi. With Messi we got a 50/50 chance against any team in the world however crap the other 10 guys of our team are. So, no point talking about tactics and formation, we watched 3 matches and I haven’t seen anything but absolute cluelessness. It’s Messi or Bust. They look like a college team. Never in my life have I seen such a poorly coached or managed team. How Sampaoli is allowed this freedom to talk tactics and strategies when everybody knows he knows nothing about what he is talking about. He is getting away with broad light robbery in front of our very eyes.

      • True….
        But we can’t do anything. But we can mentally and physically improve to some extent where we can able put pressure on France on the pitch not on paper. We love Argentina so We hope as a team Argentina will be more united on the pitch than the team France. We can attack against weakness only if we are united.
        That why we can’t seperate messi. Messi just need to calm and lead the team being on front.
        That’s how the only way we can win against France.

  8. Don’t know how much pace we need
    But definitely need all 11 to defend.
    Stop them outside the box
    Cut balls to their forwards
    Higuin should play
    He defends well
    Creates free space

  9. You guys need to get off masche’s back not because he has been flawless but he is a leader and i know that is not enough and I would have agreed with you if we had a kante or someone of that elk but what we have is bigilia who will always be second to masche even if masche is 40.I wouldn’t replace anyone with masche(even battaglia or ascacibar)because we have no other leaders,so i will take the bad with the good.Now higuains case is different as we have a fit(finally) and hungry Aguero waiting unlike our CDM position,even Messi can play there as a false 9.And higuain pressing is good but he has lost his pace fully and even his touch seemed to have left him.If it was the napoli higuain i would take him even with his tendency to miss chances but I watched juve all season and he was piss poor for the most part,not the higuain we know.Allegri even dropped him for the Italian cup final and played mandezukic instead.And finally as we are very reliant on Messi to create we only get couple of good chances and higuain cant be trusted with those.

    • I don’t know mate aguero wasn’t running without ball as much as higuain and vs France everyone needs to run his ass off. I am positive since they showed grit in the last match. Even messi tracked back the attackers. Actually to be honest I don’t give a damn about who is playing or not I just want them to win tomorrow.

      • Higuain presses more but my main concern is his holdup play which has been bad.He isnt physical enough or pacy enough to outsmart defenders anymore,i think,and aguero looked fresh against Iceland.And yup i dont care if Rojo play uptop as long as we win and its not like Rojo is a bad finisher.

  10. B-day Boy Banega, has to play these 4 last games like his life depends on it. If the winning Banega shows up, we got a new legend on our hands!

  11. Mad Scientist and Friends club hopefully have plan B if we concede early because they will be the one attacking us on counters!!!

  12. it is very smart move if we play with Messi , Pavon and Di maria in front.
    both 3 are very fast players and they can make serious damage in counter attacks.

    the French as i understand they will have the ball mostly in midfield try to create their game and we will try take advantage the mistakes will make with our very fast 3 players in front.

    it is smart way. i believe we have very good chances to win.
    French is good team yes but they didn t show till now that they are football machine.

    • Di Maria had an average match vs Nigeria, but he won’t play like this all the time, he’s due a good day for Argentina, I think players like Di Maria, Higuain and even aguero have been unlucky at times I really do believe luck has to come back if they keep trying, I hope this will be their starting point for getting some luck with Argentina!!

  13. Even if sampaoli thinks about the possibility to replace mascherano with biglia as some of you guys are demanding in my opinion it’s not a wise decision to bench mascherano. He did his best to undo his errors and bad passes. I don’t know If Biglia would do the same. I think biglia should play if mascherano gets the second yellow. Dybala should only play if Messi needs to be replaced (I hope not in this World cup) lo celso should come for banega. I’m happy with higuains work rate. He bullied and pressed the Nigerian players from beginning to the end. He creates chances he is just too slow and too unlucky atm. I think he will deliver soon or later.

      • Well if we plan to go with fast counter attacks we should play with di maria pavon and messi but to be honest in my opinion our defense looks too unorganized to park the bus only. On the other hand France team wasnt that impressive in building up the attacks. We need to be careful so we don’t lose the ball easily while switching to attack mode.

  14. Playing against France, you require goal scorers and great finishers because the reality is they will going to score even if you put 11 players inside the box, so we have to outscore them and that only comes when you have players can shoot from distance or take set pieces (corners) seriously, not like our rubbish corners against Nigeria.

  15. @mafiaso
    Thanks for posting that awesome post game analysis video. Well there should be nomore debate now. Mascherano was borderline bad against Nigeria. We got supremely lucky there. But we all know Masche is not getting dropped so lets hope that Masche has realised he had a very poor game.Tomorrow against France since we will sit back and attack on counters lets pray that he is going to keep things simple and not over do it. Him and Biglia should have voluntarily hung up their boots before the world cup like Zaba but they didn’t. From stupid foul in the box that ended up in penalty to multiple times losing possession, like it or not Masche was by far the worst player on pitch against Nigeria and he is going to be our biggest liability in the next match.

  16. we can t change every game line up. enough circus we have been till today from Sampaoli
    mixing.
    we should start with the same line up that win against Nigeria.
    if exist tactical reason we should make one change.

    it is not serious thing to play 10 games and have 10 different line ups for example.

  17. You cant compare Banega with Pogba. they are different. our advantage is, that they dont have a player like banega. To win the game, we have to take control of ball possesion, attack from the flanks, and try to avoid Kante..

  18. Can anyone tells me what is the advantage of playing Enzo Perez.?Why not someone who can carry the ball down more of to compliment Messi such as Dybala or Lo Celso since Mascherano doesn’t have the ability to do that, I might be wrong but explain it to me.

    • Enzo has been average or ok for us in his worst days, meaning he is not be flashy but he is dependable. He works hard, neat passer, moves forward to combine with our attackers.

      You remember last match? Perez moved to a half space as Banega gave him a lofted ball and it was a dangerous situation. Here : https://youtu.be/hASV2ns2kGs?t=133

      Also he combined with Messi in the right to maintain the width.

      Lo Celso is exciting but you don’t know if he won’t crumble in a high pressure and physical match. You can’t guarantee he won’t be outmuscled by Matuidi just like he was by Kroos. He might just do well, but we don’t know. But with perez, you know he is not going to embarrass. He will add a bit of everything : Body, defense, forward run, short passing. He is jack of all trade while being master of none.

    • Perez is the most experienced CM we have. Lo Celso may be younger but has not really impressed in this role when given chances. Perez has not done much wrong in 3 matches (apart from his inexplicable miss against Croatia). Also in a game of this magnitude, you need your players to hold their nerve. Perez is an ideal choice when you consider these all. Same goes to Mascherano. He is clearly past his golden days and much slower now. But he is easily the best tackler in the team. If he can improve his distribution and does not commit silly errors, he is far better than Biglia (or even Perez) as a holding midfielder. Exclusion of DYbala is quite obvious as of now. He plays in the same position as Messi. In order to accommodate him, we need to get rid of either Higuain/Aguero or DiMaria/Pavon. Clearly he is not effective in the role of CF or LW. Also, 13 appearances for Argentina with 0 goals- not the kind of stat that states your claim for a spot. On a side note, the coach needs to find a way to accommodate both Messi and Dybala in a team, but it’s not going to happen in this WC.

        • I saw the matches against Spain, Italy and Nigeria. He was below average. Particularly he still has some problem in decision making. Apart from his age and speed, he is not a significant upgrade over Perez.

  19. Nigeria match:
    Best players: Messi, Banega & Rojo
    Worst players: Mascherano, Di Maria & Higuain
    All other players played an ok game. Done their duty nicely.

    • What game were you watching? Higuain worst player? If you look at football in the context of just scoring goal then you’re one short sighted person. Banega and Higuain make the Argentina national team more complete against Nigeria. It was no coincidence Messi best performance at the world cup happen when he started alongside Higuain..Learn about football before you type idiotic statement..Di Maria played great, got behind the Nigerian defense on several occasion. Masche did what he was suppose to do, break up play and recover the ball, and no matter what anyone say, their is no other Argentinean player right now who can do the things Masche is currently doing at the world cup. Learn to appreciate the team and the players, until then you guys to me will always be FAKE bandwagonist fans. Is it hard to say well done team now let’s improve on somethings for the upcoming game? Oh, ”Messi, Banega and Rojo” played great while everyone else was bad, yes because Argentina was using 3 players vs Nigeria 11 players. SMH

      • Higuain missed two big chances that would have been costly if not Rojo’ s heroic. The choker is continuing his poor form. What idiotic comment you make when you call him one of the best. Don’t get fooled by his hard work. 9 should score when opportunity arrives. He choke whenever it comes. I thought you will analyze a player with his position and duty. I am wrong. You blindly support some of these players not matter what they are doing.
        “Messi, Banega and Rojo” played great while everyone else was bad”
        Who told this man. You are being yourself. That’s it.

      • Higuain was absolutely useless in that match! I don’t care how much he pressed or how hard he worked, when presented with a great opportunity to score he failed miserably as usual. As 9 he has one task only and that’s to score and for the last 4 years he hasn’t been able to do that to save his life.

  20. This might not be much but in the last nine FIFA tournaments between Mexico and Brazil, it’s surprising how Mexico have had the upper hand..6 wins for Mexico, 2 wins for Brazil and 1 Drawn..The most recent game between the two teams at the 2014 world cup ended in a draw..While Brazil is favor against Mexico in the round of 16 by the so call ”experts”, past tournaments have shown that Mexico have had the best of Brazil..And I didn’t even factor in Mexico 2012 Olympic final win over Brazil. Mexico out of all national team in the last decade or so have had the most consistent winning run against Brazil.

    • Kid
      I am aware of it and agree with you. Generally speaking Mexico is not a kind of game Brazil will do against. Brazil’s game is perfect for a team like Argentina. That’s why I can bet our record is pathetic against Brazil.

      • Yep, Mexico have one of the best international winning record against Brazil in the last two decades compare to Argentina and other South American teams.

  21. The PK shootout simulations of the three goalies against sub 20 players?

    Wilfredo Caballero: 2/7
    Nahuel Guzmán: 2/10
    Franco Armani: 2/17

    The three goalies penalty statistics in their whole career:
    Caballero 11/27
    Nuhuel Guzman 7/22
    Franco Armani 5/13

    It seems like Caballero as PK specialist is not a fluke.
    I am not sure if we will have one extra sub left to sub for him when facing PK shootout. But his presence as a goalie in PK shootout and his undefeated record in PK shootout in his career surely helps to intimidate any PK kickers.

    But realistically, let’s hope for Armani to do well when facing PK shootout. At least his career’s record is not that bad.

  22. I can’t believe how many fans have turned on Mascherano and don’t want him in the team. If Mascherano wasn’t good enough for the team then he would be the first person to say so. Mascherano has so much experience to bring to the midfield. He is only 34 people acting as if he’s come out retirement to play for Argentina. Every midfielder is susceptible to pacey forwards, just watch what Messi does to france’s young midfield!! Sometimes we have to understand Mascherano can also have a bad game too.

    • No one has turned on him. We all want him to play well – but he hasn’t. We’re lucky Nigeria failed to capitalize on one of his many giveaways. We shouldn’t expect France to do the same. So people calling for his replacement (who also know that it won’t happen) are not crazy.

      • Messiah knows well what he said.
        probably you didn t notice that exist somebody which he is not Argentina sure
        and he posts hate against Mascherano. he speak so bad and use words which
        is out of football.

        other thing the football opinion and other thing to post things which show
        that somebody is bad human first of all.

      • You “can’t believe” how everyone turned against him? He lost the ball in no less than 4 times and in dangerous areas! And he topped it all off with a damn penalty, he was a total liability. What I can’t believe is how much praise he’s gotten from people here while Enzo, who was much better, got vilified.
        In the game against Ecuador he did the same mistakes and gave up 2 balls in very dangerous areas!
        When I saw his performance against Iceland I thought that he’s back to his best form but the reality is the guy’s finished and needs to do the honorable thing and let a younger, more talented midfielder like Celso take over the reigns.

    • i agree with you my friend.
      just don t give attention so much here because the most of fans here is not from Argentina and it is very logic to not be able to understand how the Argentinians feel about Masche.

      Back home thank God people is completely different about Masche.
      we respect him and we apreciate everything he have offered all that years to our national team.
      He is one pure Argentine fighter. we honor him anyway.

      so i give you advice my friend to ignore as i am doing too to all the Masche haters that come up suddenly.

  23. If Messi plays as no9 Instead of Higuain/Aguero than Argentina playing for extra time and Aguero as a super sub to score against tired defense. Not a bad idea when opposition is favorite and Higuain is useless in front of goal yes good in build up so as pavon

  25. Rumour said that Mendy should be off for this game, big handicap for them because he is almost the only one who can do the crossing well. When he played vs Denmark on the 2nd half, he brought immediately lot of danger from his left side. The fullbacks Hernandez, Sidibe and Pavard are weak technically.

    • Sam. Is not our trainer any more. Messi is the boss. He with the advice of someone very close to him make the choices and that someone has to be very good because to win france you have to close the spaces and play smart. Messi best is when he play false 9. Scoring or creating chances. Banega if in form is the best in passes. I can say he gave the pass to messi to score and a brilliant other to di maria in open space where he was brought down in the last second. Now imagine messi di maria pavon in open space. We just have to wait and close the spaces. Steal attack

  26. So much depends on Mascherano holding his own in the midfield. The team clearly believes in him, despite all his failings. If he can fight off Pogba and Kante then I think we stand a good chance of coming out on top. For all the issue I take with the lineup, it is clear a lot boils down to this. Vamos!

    • Mascherano with all my respect to his fighting spirit and true grit, he can’t keep up with young fast players. This is not a debatable fact.

      • He can’t keep up with them and he can barely pass through them. He is useful for the handful of times he breaks up an attack before it happens by closing down opposing players before they can turn – but that is it. He’s a liability in the midfield, a liability in defense… but he is clearly willing to bleed for the team, and I would say the euphoria of the dramatic win has probably made it so the team sees only this and not his failings.

        What can you do? Lo Celso should have come on in the group stage – there is no way they are going to debut him now in a do-or-die game against a tournament favorite. Hopefully Masche surprises us all and has a vintage performance. Nothing else to say.

        • Well Mascherano and after having a tough game against Nigeria, not sure he has fuel left in his body, he’s no 20 years old fresh player. A difficult game would drain him for weeks and I’m not sure we will see same Mascherano who played last game. Age dictates at the end.

          • If he was that exhausted it would show in training and I am sure they would take notice. It’s not like he’s elderly – he’s just out of step.

    • I told here this before. He is so poor lately. And I said I don’t know what position Mascherano plays whether it’s CB or DM or CM. Some questioned here. I was supporting Enzo. They said it was unclear what’s Enzo doing in our midfeld. They don’t understand the value of Enzo. If Mascherano out after another yellow and we through, another hated player Biglia can do better whatever Mascherano doing currently. As we don’t have other options in DM, my only concern is don’t use them both at same time. One would do the enough harm…!

  28. If Pavon starts, it only signals one things, that is we are going to play counter attacks. Pavon is there to add speed in counters.

    With masherano loosing ball here and there, playing short pass based possession football, trying to dominate the game will be suicidal. France will kill us with it’s sprinters.

    However sprinters are not very good when playing proactive game. You need vision, imagination, distribution and combination to create while in possession. Pogba, Kante and Matuidi are not that kind of midfielder. There is no number 10 in France team. Descision making capability of players like Mbappe is poor. Let them come to us.

    This worldcup has shown that defensive teams have created problems for their opponents. It’s wise to minimize our weakness in defence and midfield. That will be done when distance between our MF and DF is less and our not so fast defenders will be safe against fast players when we defend low. You close down spaces and press the collectively, France will have no idea what to do.

  29. Whoever wins the game of Brazil-Belgium in quarter final will go all the way to win this world cup. It’s sad but I can’t see any team can stop the winner of this match.

    • Bro honestly what i have seen so far. I think Brazil Sucks big time and they are overrated. Belgium may put another 7 inside Brazil ass 😂. No chance against Belgium. Brazil has a chance of nervous breakdown. But good luck to u against Mexico. All the best. Mexico have the capabilities to upset too.

      • dunno about Mexico’s ability (esp after their 3-0 drubbing), but Bra71L certainly are spooked after their 2014 debacle.

        The moment they concede, their balls just drop. Saw it happen vs Netherlands in 2010, saw it against Switzerland too.

        • Mexico don’t have a width in their bench, if they play 39 years old as a sub, you know how desperate they are for subs. Sweden exposed a full range of Mexicans weaknesses that provided Tite with answers to their one pony tick plan.

  30. I think if it comes down to it, we may have to do a van Gaal and sub Armani for Willy. Penalty saves are the one good thing Willy has in his locker. Hopefully it doesn’t come down to that though. I already feel physically sick just thinking of Penalties. Anyway these were the numbers:

    Wilfredo Caballero: 2/7
    Nahuel Guzmán: 2/10
    Franco Armani: 2/17

  32. “Sarcasm here, play along”:
    Lloris is a world class keeper and if only we had Argentinian players that can score on him!!!
    Let me think….
    Juventus 2-2 Tottenham
    Higuain 2’, 9’
    Tottenham vs Juventus
    Higuain 64’
    Dybala 67’
    Nah… can’t see any Argentinian scoring in him…
    End of sarcasm**

    Real Talk!!!! We should start players that score on Lloris for fun! Players like Man City’s Aguero, Higuain maybe (probably not), Dybala, etc.

    My Line Up!

    Armani
    Mercado-Fazio-Otamendi-Rojo
    Di Maria-Mascherano-Banega
    Messi-Aguero-Dybala

    • You can’t be serious, Di maria is washed out and playing shit even if you he plays against Panama.

    • Argentina vs France
      Armani vs Lloris (W: Lloris but by little)
      Mercado vs Pavard (Winner: Mercado)
      Fazio vs Varane (W: Varane)
      Otamendi vs Umtiti (W: Umtiti)
      Rojo vs Hernandez (W: Rojo)
      Mascherano vs Kante (W: Kante)
      Di Maria vs Tolisso/Matuidi (W: Tolisso or Matuidi)
      Banega vs Pogba (W: Pogba)
      Messi vs Griezman (W: Messi duhhh)
      Aguero vs Giroud (W: Aguero)
      Dybala vs Mbappe (W: Dybala)
      [Mbappe is overrated imo]

      Overal, defense id say we’re even, in Attack we’re better, but we’ll lose the battle in the midfield which is crucial!

      But anything is possible! Beat France, and we can beat ANYONE!
      Vamos Argentina!!!!!
      🇦🇷🏆🇦🇷

      • Not 100% agreed:

        – Otamendi > Umtiti

        – cannot compare Di Maria to Tolisso/Matuidi, Enzo similar to Matuidi and Lo Celso closed to Tolisso, I would say equal. Lo Celso as talented as Tolisso. And Matuidi as bad as Enzo in their current form.

        – Banega vs Pogba, this is a debate. Banega was awesome against Manchester this year and Pogba was transparent. The French may be more spectacular but always do useless things to show off. The Argentine is not consistent from time to time. So I would say equal.

        – hard to say between Mbappe and Dybala, different style. Equal to me just in terms of talent. Actually Dybala is the kind of player that France need, may even be a better fit than Mbappe in Deschamps system.

      • You cant compare Banega with Pogba. they are different. our advantage is, that they dont have a player like banega. To win the game, we have to take control of ball possesion, attack from the flanks, and try to avoid Kante..

  33. My dream is to see for once the trio Dybala-Messi-Pavon with Messi as false 9. If Lo Celso not in the starting 11, we need another creative player like Dybala, who can do playmaker job and can score too.

    I know definitely that Dybala will not be in the starting 11 because the pair Messi-Dybala was never tested and its kind of risky to try that now.

    If people compare Messi to Maradona then we may compare Dybala to Baggio. How good to have those 2 creators together on the same pitch. We may lost against France but at least we have to play our best football and leave no regret.

  34. If we don’t put Fazio on Giroud, we will be very dangerous.

    You know France likes counter attack, so you park the bus.

    France also knows you are lack of tall defenders, they will use Giroud just like Germany did to us in 2006/2010.

  35. Interesting reported line up, one which I’m actually excited about.
    I think homework on France has been done well. France is AVERAGE in creating goals from possession-based football. Their strength lies with counterattacks using their wingers Mbappe and Dembele with Griezmann as the central forward.

    So what’s the best way to hurt them? Not allow them to play with their strengths.
    We will force them to attack from build up play and that’s when we expose their spaces and actually counter. Something Argentina never gets the opportunity in doing so because all teams park the bus against us.
    Besides, they would be planning extensively how to shut down our attack of Higuain, aguero and dybala only to realise they’re not starting 😂
    Should be really exciting, hopefully our strategy works out well.

    • You forgot to mention Giroud mate. He is also instrumental in French attack. Perhaps their best forward in terms form(international). They can play possession based football too, though they are not good at it at the moment. Long balls to Giroud, he wins most of them and the 2nd ball will fall for either Griezmann,mbappe or whoevr fancies it. Against Peru they did it well, although it wasn’t the best. Against Argentina I believe Giroud will target Rojo in particular( Otamendi is no exception) who struggles against physical players. It will be an easy pick for Giroud and the likes of Griezmann, Mbappe and others will profit from it. Also they have an attacking threat in the likes of Pogba and Matuidi(whoever comes off the bench as well- Lemar,Tolisso,Fekir) who make exceptional forward runs into the penalty box.

      • I agree with you and obviously France on paper have world class players who can create goals out of nothing. They haven’t really demonstrated that though during this WC.
        For example against Australia, France had the majority of possession, but could only scored a penalty and OG to win it. They even had Giroud in the last 15mins or so and did nothing.
        The one change id like is to include dybala if we plan to do counter attacks since he thrives off that in juventus

      • Giroud was pocketed by Phil Jones of all people not long ago.
        He’s a terrible runner and the only good thing about him is his aerial advantage.
        Otherwise, he’s a poor forward, who was beaten by Phil Jones crawling on the ground of all people.
        The aerial reason is the only one why he was selected over Lacazette

    • Dybala won’t play, they don’t need to worry about higuain, they can leave the goal empty for him and he still can’t score. Aguero can be isolated easily and becomes ineffective. They only need to stop Messi. We hear about our attacking power, but I don’t see it practically, in fact it’s hard for us to score goals under the current system.

      • Indeed. Argentina boasts about having a plethora of attacking talents but we’re struggling to score goals. So idk why people are so angry about benching Higuain and aguero, it’s not like they’ve been scoring for fun and we’re crazy to bench them. Aguero gave us a point against iceland but that’s all his contribution has been.

        • How many goals have we scored in qualifiers? in friendlies? (don’t mention Haiti, that’s not a team), and how many goals have we scored in this world cup?

          People criticize our defense but I think the problem is with our attack. 3-0 against Croatia wasn’t because of the defense but we didn’t have a real goalkeeper in the first two games. I see our defense is above average while our attack is below average. Midfield will look solid only if you take Di Maria completely out.

  36. This game is dybala s time he needs tu make minutes there to get that confidence to score tomorrow the winning goal and he will be especially the final game scorer

  37. I sincerely hope we don’t play 4-3-3 false 9. This formation’s success depends upon the pressing of your false 9 and your wingers scoring goals.

    Leo is fine with pressing, but our wingers don’t score goals to make this formation work. And I don’t want our best (AND ONLY CAPABLE) scorer to waste an entire match creating space for Di Maria and Pavon to miss.

    However, if we infact play this formation, this will be the best place to use Dybala as the RF.

    Dybala will be able to score unlike Pavon or Di Maria.

    In any case, I’m excited about tomorrow and I think we will win.

    • In pk, goal keeper’s luck n saves are bonuses only.
      If we can hit 5 goals on bulls eye. Luck n Goal keeper saves will come to us.
      Our players must shoot well, that’s all.
      Armani will save 1 or 2.

  39. don t worry my friend. the media are free to record only some minutes from training.

    after that time officially over they go out from trainning place.

    they let the media record what our staff wants. not all the trainning.

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