Lionel Messi on Argentina win: “It was important to start off with a win”

By
Roy Nemer
-
287

Lionel Messi spoke about the difficulties of the game as well as being back with the Argentina national team.

Messi was the goal scorer for Argentina as he scored the penalty to give them the 1-0 win vs. Ecuador and the full three points in the World Cup qualifiers. Speaking after the match, here’s what he had to say:

“We knew it was going to be complicated but the most important thing is that we won and now we have to work to keep growing.

“It was important to start off with a win because we know how difficult the World Cup qualifiers are. The matches are always tough, we were waiting for this level, it’s been a while we haven’t played. The anxiety also makes it complicated.

“It was a complicated year for what we are living through. Being able to go back and play with the Argentina national team and give happiness to people with the win, beyond the game, serves to decompress. Much strength to all Argentine’s.”

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287 Comments

  4. Looks like Scaloni wants to tighten the defence to concede less goals. Hence Foyth in RB. Which looks correct decision. Acuna would have been more helpful for us in the next match. He is a small bull. Hope our players can cope with the height issues. And looks like Armani will be starting again. Interesting, let’s see how he’s gonna cope.

    I m sorry it’s wrong blog. But I only post here. One of my favorite sports after Football is Tennis. Come on Rafa. One of the most difficult task if u look at all sports is. Beating Nadal at French open, will be there in top 5 for sure. It’s un believable. 13 FO just wow. We r infact living in one of the best eras with once in lifetime athleats like Messi, Ronaldo, Usain Bolt, Michael Phelps, Mayweather, Pacquiao, Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, Serena Williams, Sachin, Lara, etc etc… Unbelievable athleats. I missed so many names by the way. Just saying.

  5. Post after a couple of years! Even though I am still reading the comments, as majority mention, the page has become a troll magnet.
    I think we need someone to up the ‘fun’ factor, it’s difficult to get anything positive when a lot of them try hard to be funny.

  6. Hey guys, I have been reading the comments and there are certainly mixed feelings about the team’s performance… I am relieved to gain the point which was important. Hope the boys can deliver an improved performance in the next match..I am optimistic.
    For the next math at LaPaz , we could possibly employ the strategy of attacking from the word GO for an early goal just like we did against quatar and other teams in the last copa, so that before the boys get tired of the altitude we would be in a good position, then control the game defensively..I know it is not silky smooth football…but it could be a pragmatic approach….what do you guys think?..

  8. Ok I will say one thing here, I have no issues with people coming here praising Brazil or Germany or whoever because honestly good football should be praised, because good football is a joy to watch.
    What I do have a serious issue with is people coming here praising other teams not for the purpose of praising other teams but rather to put Argentina down and when you come to an Argentina fan board and do something like that then you are a troll and you should be treated as such.
    @ kid, king messi and a few others, I do know if you guys are trolling or just expressing your disappointment in a manner that comes off as trolling, but I suggest you take a look at a post before you post it, because you guys are coming off as trolls, especially you kid, once upon a time you were the first to defend Argentina against negative comments and now you’re leading the charge with everything negative, honestly man you’re coming off more bipolar than some of the patients I see in the hospital.

    Just remember criticism is perfectly fine because our favorite teams will have bad days or weeks or months or even years but trolling is not acceptable, it exists purely to inflame instead of entertain.

    • Kid,just lost it after the copa america 2016 if i am remember correct. He isn’t same anymore. I really used to admire his post and debate. It was nice back then but then suddenly his love affair for last generation gone really weird. Come on Kid get over it. That generation should have gone after 2016 Copa. We wouldn’t have seen today if there was a proper AFA and coach to do that. Look at VARsil who people praising now they already had plan to do this after 2016 Copa. They hired a proper coach and sticked with him even failure after failure . We should have done same but we are little late but on course. Bangea,Di-maria generation has gone past,Otamendi will go eventually but only Messi will stay till Qatar probably.

      • > That generation should have gone after 2016 Copa.

        Didi I misunderstand or are you really suggesting prime Banega, Aguero, Di maria, and Otamendi should have left in 2016? If so, then I’d imagine every single level headed coach in the entire planet would not only reject it, but they would drop to the ground in disbelief and horror at such a statement.

  9. As bad as Bolivia is as a national team, they’re nothing compare to dozens of national teams from Europe who usually lose by 9-10 goals in competitive qualifying games….

    Against Brazil, Bolivia had already wave the white flag before kickoff. All indications pointed to Bolivia putting everything on the line for the Argentina game in La Paz hence the reason they left half of their squad in La Paz to train for the midweek world cup qualifying game…

    This is the weakest Argentina team traveling to La Paz, even weaker than Maradona 2009 team. Bolivia is easily the favorites to win this game but bookies won’t see it as such, they will see it as Argentina (powerhouse*) vs Bolivia minnows hence giving the edge to Argentina.

    It’s funny how some say Di Maria should be called and used as a super sub when none of the starters are as good as him..Argentina need to play Di Maria as a CM box to box midfielder or an attacking midfielder right behind Messi/Aguero/Lautaro..Banega/Ocampos/Depaul midfield..

    ————–Messi—-Lautaro

    —————Di Maria

    Ocampos———————De Paul

    —————Banega

    Acuna—————————-Tag

    —–Otamendi—–Lucas Martínez

    ———Emiliano Martinez

    Coach: Manuel Pellegrini

  11. Lol..one would be mistaken for thinking this is a Brasil fans’ forum reading some of these sugar-coated comments on the talent levels and resource-depth. I have been following Superliga and Campeonato Brasileirao for years. There is not even a single player in Brazil(at least as far as the optics go on to suggest) among those who play regular first team football that matches for the talent levels of players like Anibal Moreno, Mateo Retegui or Urzi(these are not even confirmed starters at their clubs), let alone other young stars or so-called ‘wonderkids’ in Boca, River or Independiente. Brazil clubs are great at marketing and branding and are quite good in terms of financial capability. Clubs like At. Paranaense would ward off a deal that is below €30m for their best young talents. This ‘my way or highway’ attitude helps a lot in attracting better offers whereas in Argentina, even the mighty River and Boca would fall flat in their attempt to showcase the ‘deserved value’ for their players. ‘He who falls for something will fall for anything’ is the case for these clubs when it comes to striking deals with the European giants.

  12. This Argentina team one of the most talented squad I have ever seen, so you guys please just calm down this currently Argentina team is unbeatable, so please just calm down . Argentina will trash Bolivia, inn sha tallah ul izeem

  13. De Paul, Paredes and Quarta reported to be exhausted and in process of recovery.

    Foyth will start ahead of Montiel.

    Salvio could start over Acuna.

    Does not sound promising. Prepare for another ugly game. Bad passes, no fluidity.

  14. Casbalala,Mirnal and all others who glorify VARsil,
    Can you please explain if they are so world class then why did they rob and did fraud in last Copa from us. They were so scared of Argentina that they did everything to they can only stop our young team anyhow . No argument VARsil was strongest football team because the history says it all but I do not think they are anymore in that level you guys are hyping them. Tite been with them for 4 years now and our team only evolving now. Do the math and smooch VARsil after 4 years please. Can you guys do this?

  15. Those Brazil fanatics in here oh yeah
    They know who they are let me tell you something.
    To me Neymar and di maria are same level
    I mean Neymar isn’t better than di maria.
    My point is this Argentina can afford to leave Di maria.
    Can Brazil do the same to leave Neymar?
    Don’t come here overhype Brazilian
    Yes Brazil are strong nation but Belgium
    Knocked them out last world Cup
    To me that is embarrassing really is.

  16. I want Emi Martinez to be incorporated in this Argentina ASAP. How Emi Martinez lifted Arsenal and Aston Villa we can see same will happen with Argentina.
    I do not know why people were saying Acuna is utility player, hard working,just see what Acuna brings to the team. He is average player breaks rhythm of the game. Next match I want to see Gomez,Dybla and Emi Martinez as starters. Qualifiers are going to be tough. Colombia, Brazil, Uruguay, Chile all are strong team and Peru, Venezuela are also strong team. 5th rank team has to play play-off that means they can not play friendlies with Europian heavyweights before World Cup. Argentina needs to deploy strongest team just like Brazil did otherwise they will find it hard to qualify.
    Argentina needs two or three games and chemistry will be back. Just do not play Acuna at any cost, even R. Perreya was better than Acuna.Acuna does not gel with anybody.
    Argentina will be back to it’s best,very soon.

  17. The one and only advantage that Brazil have is the coach. I am not worried about Brazil. But their coach is a gem. Tite is a phenomenal. Despite being a die hard fan of Argentina I have only praise to shower on Tite. After taking the responsibility of Brazil in 2016 Brazil have done really well compared to dunga’s Brazil. I would love to have a tactician like Tite. His player selection is really good. On the other hand Scaloni, Aimar, Samuel and Ayala are trying their best. We have played a competitive match after a long time. So have the rest of the teams. Pandemic can’t be an issue of their poor performance. Because our footballers are thorough professionals. Though I think having points is more important than playing well at this point. Because our 1st priority is to qualify for the world cup. Scaloni and his Co has brought some new unproven players. Yes I am also not satisfied with the selection of players like acuna, salvio, Armani, andrada and marchesin. If you have a look at the team we can see that this team is full of aged goalkeepers. We are lucky to have Musso and EMI Martinez. One more thing scaloni should do is selecting some players like EMI buendia, Thiago almada, Fausto Vera so that they get exposure from the European clubs. Because.Argentina is a big team in the world football. Yesterday some of our friends made a comment that this current Argentina team is the worst. I don’t agree to it. We have some potential young players. They just need to be nurrished so that they become the backbone of the team. We stood by clown Edgardo bauza. Scaloni is way superior to clown Bauza. So my request to everyone to stand by scaloni.

    • Very good find. The majority here think that European clubs have some agenda against the Arg players and favor Brazilians. Well, you will do business with the ones you feel comfortable with. It’s as simple as that. The problem lies with the Argentine clubs, not with the Europeans.

  20. One poor game from our beloved team and negativity and exaggeration on their peak start all over again, from the same Brazilian loving people, same old story. They didn’t even bother to take into account given circumstances like the team didn’t play together for a year thus being a bit rusty neither the fact that we had some absences such as Dybala, Lo Celso, Nico Gonzalez, Pezzela, but you know, it’s ok, everyone has the right to express his/her oponion, i have decided not to take seriously some specific people’s opinion in here anyway.

    Yes, we didn’t have a good game, like we did with Brazil in superclassico were the yellow frauds were lucky to conceed just one goal from us, or the game against Uruguay, but i am happy that we started with a win. I have been watching our beloved team for 3 decades and i can mention numerous times that we played beautifully but lost ugly in the end therefore, i couldn’t care less if we won ugly this time, i only care that we won.

    Bolivia is nothing outside La Paz. Even during our worst situation under Martino or Bauza era, i don’t remember very well, we have beaten them 7-0. But Bolivia in La Paz is a diferent story. It is La Paz, not Bolivia. Bolivia in La Paz has beaten Brazil and Uruguay as well but i will say something that will upset some people in here: Argentina’s biggest defeat in their history was the infamous 6-1 to Bolivia in La Paz, while Brazil’s two biggest defeats in their history were the 7-1 from the Germans and do you know the second one?? 6-1 from Argentina!

    Lets move on and fight Bolivia in La Paz!
    VAMOS ARGENTINA CARAJO!!

    • Our last 2 home matches against Bolivia at home in WCQ, poor 2:0 and 1:1 and we struggled really hard, try to be objective, friendlies mean nothing, Brazil was lucky? They played without their best player Neymar, missed a penalty, and ARG would have not scored without the penalty. We were same bad in attacking, like yesterday. Thats what Scaloni knows, kill the game, but clueless in attacking. OK we can lie that ARG are world beaters and Brazil are shit, but why?

      • The only lier in here Csabalala is you. You are saying that we didn’t have any chances against Brazil in the superclassico and everyone who has seen the match knows if this is true or not. But this is not your only lie. Being objective?? You can’t imagine mate how funny stands for me the fact that you are saying this! You are constantly giving so much hype to Brazil and it’s players in an extent beyond reality! I never said that Brazil is not among the best teams in the world but i know that they are surely not as good as you are trying to convince us in here, neither Brazil nor it’s players! You are talking about Vinicious and Rodrigo like they are real wonders, they do play for Real Madrid ok, but whenever i have watched them they honestly didn’t seem to be something special to me, let alone the hype that you are selling in here! You used to say the same things about Malcom, well where is Malcom now??

        I am trying to be objective and i hate lies, i never said that Brazil is not along the best teams in the world, but i don’t respect them at all for my own reasons and i ensure you that too mamy people, being Argentina fans or not, don’t respect them either for the same exactly reasons.

        Don’t speak to me about being objective and about lies, those two things are exactly what you are spreading in here for the favour of Brazil, you may be in reality a true Argentina fan but in my eyes you are definetely not!

        • Lets forget about Vinicious and Rodrygo although they have potential to become very good players. But they have good to worldclass players at every positions.
          GK- Allison, Ederson
          LB – Lodi, Telles, Sandro
          RB – Danilo, Emerson
          CB- Marqunious, Filipe, Thiago Silva, Militao, Deigo Carlos
          Midfield- Casemiro, Fabinho, Coutinho, Allan, Arthur,Fernandinho.
          Wingers- Neymar, Costa, Everton,Raphinha,Vinicious, Rodrygo,Neres.
          Strikers- Jesus, Firminho, Richalison.

          Argentina dont have except Strikers and may be midfield.

        • @Waveride Please ignore those who are talking like nonsense that Arg have no chance against Brazil. Please ignore. They doesn’t know what is rivalry between Arg vs Brazil. So they do not deserve to be Argentina Fan. Just ignore.

  21. 1)I think de paul is not a proper CM. Scaloni should search for a holding mf like biglia or banega type . Instead de paul can be used in wing or attacking mf .
    2) Scaloni should use a tall, solid central defender . Like garay played before. Now we have 3 options Romero, Sensei or fredrico Fernandez. Fernandez is playing well for new castle utd.
    3) Tactically Scaloni is good. But he is very poor with defence and mf selection. With this selection he can not go to the next level. Winning against Ecuador is not enough. When we will play against big European team we will struggle.

    • Agree, while he did well, depaul should be on the wing where he can use his crosses and long gait. Ocampos locelso paredes depaul is our strongest option..

      As for scaloni sucking at defense, Samuel is there, I trust that guy more than anyone to read the game defensively. Give scaloni credit, he is slowly making the defense better and better. Quarta was a very good choice, kid did excellent. Scaloni is building a high line, good passing defensive line, eventually he will settle on a right back (montiel did well) and Otamendi will be replaced.

      • I think this is also why they are preffering armani, he is a very good “sweeper keeper” and blocking breakaway goals. With a high defensive line that becomes more important..

  22. The bolivia game would be low scoring game well it could also be a stalemate 0-0. Because I have more faith in our defence than before. Scaloni, Ayala, Samuel and Aimar working with our defence. There is no way Bolivia will roll over us in La Paz.

  23. I think for Right Midfield we should go for Erik Lamela he is looking good for Spurs right now. He would be much better than De Paul.Eric Lamela is very intelligent player he would be jewel for us. His injuries are problem but he is more talented than most of Argentine. I do not about his defensive work rate but he would be nice addition.

    • Better than depaul, no way. But Lamela should be in the squad. He fights hard and has immense natural talent. His injuries destroyed his potential, but he is solid. Lamela is a great sub as he can play in many midfield roles, similar to locelso

    • lanzini is better than de paul. that guy is injury prone but nobody is matching with lanzini other than lo celos. lanzini can score and pass the ball accurately. but this f..k in managers not giving the proper chance to him.
      bielsa rejected de paul because of he is not worthy more than 15million euro.
      if lanzini and lo celso play as CM then no on will needed for creativity.

      parades is waste, useless. lisandro martinez or guido rodriguez is better than him. both of them taking the ball forward. current midifield is not that is the reason whole pressures are goes to defenders and.
      scaloni: you have experimented this Midfield with low par teams.
      please try to find the better midfield such as (lanzini, locelso and lisandro martinez) all three will move the ball forward.
      saravia is more better than montiel. please use him
      please throw out acuna, lauturao(all the time falling down), otamendi, montiel, salvio.

      • Lanzini is over mate, forget him, injuries destroyed him, now he is a ghost, and imo on his peak was nothing special neither. De Paul and Lo Celso are much better in defending, Lanzini cant play as ZM.

  24. I was late to this chaos going on over here but I want shed some of my analysis and truth as well.
    As mentioned by most of the followers here, the three points were the top priority coming into this game no matter how circumstances proved to be. And we did achieve that but with a lot of toil and stress, as evident throughout the whole game.
    Coming into the game, I was pretty sure that Ecuador was going to bulldoze our players and go toe to toe, cause that’s the only way to stop Argentina or at least Messi. But throughout the game what came to my notice was that, it was not Ecuador who had an excellent or overpowering performance against us( as claimed by many of the frustrated and dissatisfied Mundo members here), in fact Ecuador played the game they had always played which is, using physicality, pace and power to beat opponents to the best of their abilities. Instead it was us who had a very poor game by our own standards and thus the reason why the scoreline never incremented past one. Although I understand that it was the first match for the group after almost a year and that too with crucial injuries to starters, but still, judging by how the game went on, I never actually felt relaxing for the whole 90 minutes. It was us who gave and opened the floodgates for them to exploit us regardless of how wasteful they were. Another point I want to highlight here in broad details is about the media influence on NT, which I will talk about shortly.

    All of the views put aside, now I would like to put forth some major happenings, miscommunications and analysis of the game. Not the typical tactical analysis but some of the things I perceived after watching the game carefully, I hope you may find some relativity to it.
    But before it, I would say that many members here were uncontrollably disappointed by the team’s performance in first half, which is legit, because many expected an easy “runover result” over Ecuador. But reality hit hard and we fell into our own trap but most importantly, we took the three points and that’s what matters.

    – My first take on the match was that, Ecuador came full prepared to battle for “a point” or least a win if it was possible, their tactical game plan came into light when they opted for 4-14-1 formation which was executed successfully by parking the bus and muscling our attackers. This resulted futile for us but fruit to them as because neither of our attackers were able to create or convert any real chances( although there were lot of flash opportunities wasted). While they indeed made good use of their pace and power to capitalize on spaces left in our midfield, it was pitifully horrible on how we responded them. Quite contrary to how our midfield played against Brazil just an year ago, if we look back. All in all, things went quite well for Ecuador and massively nauseatic for us.

    – The only positive i found( for myself, but I don’t know for others) in this match apart from the tired display, was Lucas Martinez quarta’s matured and empirical precision in his defensive exhibition. I was 15 minutes into the play and I can assure you that this kid is going to be as important as Lautaro would be for Argentina, in the coming ages. Not only him, but Gonzalo Montiel was superb in the first half as opposed to some members here who thinks he was a total blunder in this match, which I don’t agree at all. Martinez quarta was the resilient centre back we were looking for. The guy was playing as if he had years of experiences in NT. He cleared the balls cleanly, won duels and recovered possession with his intelligent tackles and moves. Even the player ratings in certain football sites rated him highly over Messi and I see no reason why they won’t. He was just that good. Throughout the match he performed calmly, and irrespective of how Argentina played the game on a personal level, Lucas Martinez quarta’s display was on point, and more on point because he managed to deliver even when Argentina was playing a poor game by their own standards.
    I bet the Fiorentina management would be sipping cups of hot coffee and smiling to each others for what they have just discovered to themselves. They would be pretty relieved to sigh that they took the steps to sign him and executed it before anyone could. And I’m glad quarta is in Europe now, which is something we should have been used to by now.

    – The right back role was offered to Montiel. He didn’t disappoint anyone I guess, although people here are not happy with him. They thought Saravia, or even Acuna would have done better, isn’t it? Well, I think people can have their justification but if any of you had watched the match , will know how beautiful was the Monteil-quarta partnership in the first half. That kind of Connection was what were looking for and it came right through this river duo. It’s this huge experience and understanding between themselves that brought out the best display, especially in that right side, which has been a concern for us for quite some time. But eventually Monteil faded out in second half which opened spaces for Ecuador to hurt us. But then again, it maybe because of his lack of experience in NT, because the psychology of playing in NT is very different from clubs. So, Montiel of first half was for me the best. He did what he was asked to do, he was a bit stagnant going forward but defensively he was just brilliant. Though, he still played pretty good going forward, but all we can hope is that Scaloni gives him chances. Because that Montiel – quarta understanding is most needed in the right hand side. It’s necessary as fuck.

    – Paredes and De Paul looked very bad in this game, I must say they were pretty average with their display. More pointedly, De Paul was just off in today’s match. He never looked the player we saw almost a year back and he slumped really really bad as the game progressed. The reasons are multiple, but it might be because of what happened with his transfer saga over the last two months, with no big clubs placing any legit offers for him. This might have caused anxiety to him, and it’s understandable cause the way he performed last season would have made any player doubt on their abilities, if they went full unnoticed like how De Paul went. But by his standards, he went down too easily, he lost possession and had only mere flashes in front. About Paredes, at least he was good if not average. I can’t deny that he was good in Winning back possession and holding onto the ball along with some crucial passes, but somehow both looked very disorganized in this game.

    – Lo celso’s impact was felt in this match. Agree or not agree you will realise that the connection that De Paul and Paredes had with Lo celso was really missed in this match. Partly due to how they have settled since the Scaloni era or partly because of how they exchanged roles quickly in between them. Lo celso’s creativity and defensive task was as important as Paredes as a holding midfielder. De Paul is hard working but he moves more to the front side. Paredes as a number 5 does what any typical south American destroyer would do and lo celso’s offensive and defensive contribution was necessary for Paredes to hold and perform. So, without lo celso the midfield looked absolutely garbage. It’s not that ocampos, Messi and even Martinez had a poor game, but in fact the midfield was so poor that they couldn’t thread any decisive forward passes to front three. You can see how Messi was coming back to midfield to pick up balls and that was alarmingly a signal that it could not happen again.

    – Acuna’s inexperience in midfield as a regular player caused a burn to our passing game. The man looked like a guy who had forgotten that he was once a natural offensive player when he started out his career. I can’t blame him, but Scaloni took a gamble there, he was trying to push for that extra defensive advantage by putting him. But to be honest, he did good in defensive role but was literally bad at moving the ball forward. He never looked like a midfielder and that was the reason why De Paul and Paredes didn’t find the connection going forward. And that’s what effected both the attacking and control of our midfield.

    – I know that journalists and sports pundits have already made up public conclusions by now, of Lautaro’s invisibility in crucial games, and i better ignore that or better butcher their conscience of their understanding of the game. To any real fan, who had watched the match would know that not only lautaro but even Messi faced a harsh drought of link up passes from the midfield. Lautaro got few opportunities but he didn’t took it well, from scoring point of view but he was good at passing game in this match. His two passes to Messi and ocampos almost resulted in two goals which could have settled the match. I don’t see anything to blame lautaro, he just didn’t find the balls from anyone. And if you remember, we noticed something similar in Europa League final against sevilla, when he ,by the measurements and assessment of sport journalists, put a very average or invisible display. And the problem ? The same midfield problem, inter couldn’t thread passes to lautaro and Lukaku. So by his performance I was not disappointed but was angry at how incapable and incompetent the midfield looked.

    – I noticed a strange trait of ocampos in this match. And when I searched for his other highlights I saw that he usually uses the favour of inviting fouls. Well, I won’t doubt that if it was in the final minutes or a crucial knockout game. But he is obliviously doing a big fallacy to his development by fixing himself on to that attitude. If you take a closer look in second half, you will see that he tried to win a free kick by holding onto the ball long and he was fouled or he rather went down super easily to convince the referee. But it didn’t work. But If you check it again you will find that ocampos was surrounded by 3-4 Ecuadorian players and Messi free with only one fullback covering him. In that case, ocampos should have passed to Messi, as he was completely free, and he might have scored and secured the scoreline by that minute. This is something that ocampos should immediately trunk down from his game. There were many instances where ocampos held onto the ball too long and cost Argentina crucial chances to settle the game.

    With the slowness of our midfield, the lack of game time in international stage, without having experienced young replacements to starters, Argentina definitely looked dull. The midfield was so slow that Ecuadorian players found all the time in the world to reconfigure their defence whenever they wanted. Because, that’s how slow Argentina was. At times I felt like I was back in the 2018 period when they were incredibly slow at moving the ball forward.

    The other areas of this game was the utter innocence of Scaloni to chose his substitutes and the timing of the substitution. I don’t know if Scaloni was into some kind of pressure from the
    Argentine media or kind of political influence or not, but his substitution of salvio over Acuna was just pathetic. I was so angry that I wanted to smack my mobile. It completely drove me off. At first Acuna was struggling a lot in that position, second he failed to live up to the offensive duties and then when he got injured, we expected that we will either see palacios or papu but it was nothing. Seriously it felt like it was kind of scripted. Salvio’s performance was horrendous and you can tell easily that he didn’t fit well with the flow. However, blaming him would be ignorance but I feel the influence of Argentine media in the NT is quite true. And if I’m not wrong I read an article lately about how the ” Boca-River” selection privilege works strongly in NT. It seems to me that the media holds a lot of power and if it’s true then I must shout that Argentina are in a sorry state. People should realise that the game is diverse and the best players should play. Obviously the native clubs want their players to be seen in NT, which is quite logical, but the decision of starting Armani over Martinez was so so “politically influenced”. I never understood the reason behind it. Martinez was coming in this qualifiers with hot form and should been the undisputed starter over any goalkeeper, but sorry to say it didn’t happen. Armani was given the crown.

    If Argentina have any desire to bring success to themselves, they should steer clear away from media. If political organisation or media like these, keeps themselves tied to them and push indirect means for preference of certain players over the others, then I can say with the bloody truth that Argentina will never ever win anything, even if they manages to produce a Messi-esque talent in every position. It’s not goona happen. Things aren’t easy. When it comes to sport, it should run independently with no scratches or influence from any “power-weilding”organisation. Be it media or anything.

    Scaloni must trust his instinct and stay true to his decision. He better not get bogged down by the pressure from any third party. Instead he should chose and start whoever is relevant and credible in certain positions.
    Well, this was our first game, I know it was going to be tough because it’s world cup qualifier. And South American qualifiers are more dangerous and harder than any champions League games. The points were important and we got it.
    The group has just started so we have to be patient and give them to time to gel. It was long inactivity that disrupted our flow. And in football the flow is most important, if you don’t have understanding you’re not going anywhere, no matter how many big players you have.

    Let’s be optimistic and hope for the best.

  25. Possible changes;

    1.Foyth for Montiel.
    2.Salvio, Nico, or Palacios for Acuna
    3.Paredes, DePaul, and Quarta are exhausted and probably may not play if the condition not improved.

    Scaloni wants to continue without many changes.

  26. Get real Bolivia even with high altitude is a weak team, the odds before the match Bolivia 4,3 draw 3,7 Argentina 1,8…we are the big favourite, so no ecxuses, btw since WCQ94 Argentina have scored just once 5 goals at home, at one time!!! vs Venezuela, in WCQ2000 in a 5:0 match.

  27. Will Messi be playing against Bolivia, I hope he does, because we need him to get very well with this young team as from now there are no friendlies and only WC QUALIFIERS and COPA AMERICA.

  28. Any hope for emi martinez,dybala, gomez to our next match?I think foyth will be start..
    ……martinez…..
    Foyth…q.martinez..otamendi.. Taglia
    ……………paredes…………..
    Di paul…………………..gomez/ocampos
    …………..messi………….
    Dybala…………….lautaro
    Sub:andreda,perez,medina,montiel,palacios,dominguez, mac alister,correa, gomez/ocampos
    Maybe it’s a better for squad for next match. Anybody suggest me a good squad better than this squad..

  29. I never assume anybody here to be the haters of Argentina Football; it is just a difference of looking from other side. It’s not about haters or lovers but to be fall in love to the beauty of football, we have to be objective to admit Brazil played well today, Scaloni must have watched the game and learn from what Bolivia – Brazil strength and weakness. Bolivia got a good GK and Campos is their Ocampos in Arg N/T. Nothing to worry except the altitude problem.

    Do learn and be honest to Brazil performance, the ball movement from leg to leg, player movement without the ball; plenty of room and space with the 3 attackers in front Neymar, Coutinho and Frirmino to explore in front. Defensive players dare to support in front with 2/3 wide, that’s we can display. Argentina have plenty of players, why don’t Dybala or Papu Gomez along with Lautoro and Messi lead the attack in front. Look how we choose a shaky GK just because he is from the top elite domestic club. How our DM keep the ball past backward to save without having an idea how to build the attack from wing or central. And, ironically, we keep in bench the players that knows how to do it, very strange approach indeed. Scaloni and his team have to select the full fit selected players and give them more chance not just another listed name on their heads; bring the fun and creativity, football is not static with linear movement. BE ruthless, a match with 1-0 win ( more on penalty ) is not trend nowadays, it spoils the beauty of scoring and football game. Change the scheme immediately if it doesn’t work. Don’t wait until we conceded the goal and get panic. Stop the trial; be firm and push the players to play at their best; dare to write off the wrong players, its just a time wasted

    Once again it is not written as a haters or sarcastic but as a lovers to correct our own mistake. We have been draught of trophy for sooo loong. And going from one mistake to another mistake is not acceptable in football. So much time and talented had been wasted

    Vamos Albiceleste.

  30. if LAPAZ is so difficult for the other 9 teams, why don’t bolivia easily win all those 9 matches at home and be a contender for the top 4 teams in qualifiers? we won only 3 qualifier games only over there so far correct me if am wrong.
    1. Is it Argentina only struggling there or any other team has a bad record there.
    2. This shows our weakness physically compared to other teams if we are struggling alone.
    Guys, let me know your views?

    • Because my friend the strategy at La Paz is not about attacking but about defending and not losing. Visiting teams go there to get 1 point. And if the bolivians don’t win there they have almost zero chance of winning anywhere else. Everyone goes there with that strategy.
      High altitude is a formidable opponent to everybody. Brazil has as bad record there. They were given their first ever world cup qualifying loss at La Paz. Bolivia has only 1 copa america to their name – in the 60’s when it was in La Paz. It is a different kind of place. I have not been there personally, but I have been to similar places in Ecuador and Peru for tourism at slightly lesser height and the effect is unpredictable even in walking around if you are not prepared. Headaches, vomiting, it can happen immediately, or after one hour, or to some people it does not happen. How can you prepare? By arriving a little early because over time you get used to it. Also normal people like you and I can take altitude sickness pills but unfortunately they are considered banned substances for athletes. There is another thing you can chew in south america to prevent it but…
      professional playes are usually ok upto the 60-65 minute hour mark and then the fun starts. Luckily we have 5 subs this time. Hopefully scaloni is smart.

      brazil record
      2018 draw, 2014 – host no match, 2010 – loss, 2006 – draw, 2002 – loss, 1998 – entry as champion no match, 1994 – loss etc…

      • another thing i want to add, its not all 9 easy matches for them. For those from the flat lands – argentina, brazilans from the coastal areas, uruguayans from the river plains its has an effect. But Ecuador vs Bolivia for example is a different kind of match as they are more used to it.

        • Thanks, bro. got a good idea about the scenario. So I can see why Ecuadorians are so fast.
          Its High time our players train with similar simulation workouts, it will help overall fitness and increase their speed.

      • Very intriguing topic. Was also reading the politics behind banning & reinstating high altitude football in wikipedia.
        Basically we have lost 7 times , drawn 2 times & won 3 times. Wins were 1965, 1973 & last one was 2005 ( interestingly Scaloni was the RB ) .
        @el mongol – understand Bolivar , The Strongest all use Lapaz stadium as their base & all of them have few Argentine players. Why cant AFA just pick some of them for this match alone ? say pack 3-5 players from high altitude based clubs – something like a ‘ horses for courses’ strategy. With such a dismal record what is the harm for some experimentation ? Anyway Bolivia team quality is crap – so we necessarily do not need our top talents in pitch. We basically need players who are being able to be in pitch for 90mins.

  31. What a boring match. Have watched Brazil vs bolivia , i know the difficult condition in La paz but this Bolivia team is playing like school kids, they have no idea what are they doing.

    • Yes @Mrinal completely agreed to ur point.
      If we fear a Bolivia because of playing at high altitude, despite they are getting thrashed by the Brazilians.
      Then we are no match for Brazil, because they also played their 1st game after a year, but they humiliated Bolivia.
      Look how they had 20 shots and 70% possession, that’s how a world cup favorites play in the qualifiers.
      But some of our pundits here, tries to compare our unproven midfield to a proven dominant brazillian team. Please don’t try to overhype our midfielders when they haven’t proved anything for the NT or for their respective clubs.

  32. I dont care how brazil plays against bolivia….. And jts not fair to judge a team after one match we will come back stronger and we will be the victorious team in la paz…. Vamos💪

    • Bolivia is very weak when defending on flanks. They defend pretty well in the middle . How we can exploit width & quality of our crosses can determine if we score in next match

  35. Well I think it’s better to have medicore team if players like Lautaro,Paredes,Lo Celso & Dybala doesn’t count shit so atleast no exception. Happy to see my team playing again after the global crisis. I am sure they will only get better. You can clearly see the rustynes and lack of time to syncing with each other. Bolivia game is important too I would not mind if we even lose in altitude but a draw would be awesome. Also LMQ was impressive so was Montiel. Given time they will be even better. Also stop these nonsense that to be world class you have to be play in Madrid or Barca. To play better in NT you don’t have to play in fancy team. There are plenty of examples you can look. Please DO NOT GLORIFY yellow Varsil here. Atleast we didn’t use our president and his entire team of security to win a Copa. I love Argentina and yes bitch I hate VARsil.

    • Agreed to every single point, but your speculation of local players superior to those playing for Madrid or Barca is absolutely futile.
      Hate it or not, but local league players are no match to the level of European tier 1 players at the moment.
      Local league certainly need to enhance and upgrade their stategy, management and try to fix the loopholes.
      Definitely, everyone is not a Maradona.

  36. I am trying to avoid all the nonsense that goes around here.
    Question: where to watch the qualifiers? anybody?
    I used to watch all the games including friendlies and qualifiers on Beinsports and Goaltv before that and now that is no longer the case.
    I thought Fanatiz.com would show the games once you sign up but they want you to sign up and pay some ridiculous figure to watch the games on top of that!!!

  37. Emi Martinez should not even bother to start against Bolivia. La Paz is the worst possible venue to make your debut (I’m not sure if he played before) because Bolivia is definitely the favorite at altitude. The Bolivia game can easily be a thumbing or a narrow win for the home team but I don’t see Argentina winning in Bolivia going by the recent home performance against Ecuador..The Bolivians are going to run for 90+ minutes non stop and against this Argentina midfield, wingbacks and shaky CB’s this could easily be another Maradona level defeat in La Paz. Hope I’m wrong because this would surely hurt Messi after coming off a humiliated loss against Bayern Munich last season.

    • The starters in Equador match will start against Bolivia considering conditions..so no surprise, we played defensively. A draw is not a bad result.

    • @kidu You will eat your words as always
      Contradicting yourself man get over it
      This mediocre team will prove you
      Again and again probably deep inside
      You loving but can’t admit cose
      You way too much attached so call
      Big club players..

    • But Emi Martinez always takes hard choice, he choose Reading instead of Leeds because Reading were in relegation zone, he wanted to lift them up. If Emi gets chance he will definitely grab it with both hands. Emi Martinez should be starter I see he is going to be best goalkeeper of Premiere League 2020-2021 season

  38. @sorinxcrespo

    Dude, watching Ocampos yesterday it occurred to me that if he had bleached blonde hair, he’d look like Vanilla Ice from the Ice Ice Baby video. He just needs those 3 lines on the right side. Maybe Papu aka hairdresser can hook him up next game lol.

    • #3. “why Scaloni decided to change formations?”

      Because he knew what going up against alfaro was like based on history (organizational compact, midfield heavy team). He made conscious decision to go with something that would have stretched it as opposed to with the 4312 which would be directly in alfaro’s hands. Of course the fact that attack wise it didn’t click is a different matter but the pre-match setup made sense.

        • yes maybe he go back to it in november. because any team with lionel messi in it has to face the reality of a clogged middle. But the absence of lo celso, dybala, and even aguero from that past formula complicated matters even more for this date.

  39. After long time so many comment here..as a supporters we improve regularly, hope Argentina so….
    Yeh the game was not near to Argentine standard but after long time its always difficult to face a physically strong team.

    Yeh selection was poor but hopefully improve next game(its difficult for fucking local media)

    You can’t waste a world talent with silly excuse(yes its Dybala)

    Martinez was average due lack of creative supply, so don’t blame him..

    Pardesh played well compare to psg.
    Yeh the point is de paul..he is really good player..i think just a bad day for him nothing else
    Yeh scalonis 7 man diffence system down his performance.

    Quarta looking good, ota as usual okay.

  40. Question is why Salvio instead of Di Maria?? Why double left back?? There should have a play maker in midfield. Considering we have good forward like Dybala/martinez/Icardi/Aguero and Ocampos is also good we Can use ocampos as LM. I don’t like icardi but he is better than Simeone, Alario. Maria has right to being called up in the current squad.He is pacy, better matured than previous. Matter of thinking is that there were no shot at First half!! If you use Messi as false 9 there should have Dybala and Martinez to strike the ball. When Aguero fit Aguero and Mertinez.

  41. What does ”PMSing,” a woman’s condition have to do with anything relating to football? Come on man, stick to football instead of taking cheap shots..Debate me on football terms and substance not cheap shots..Put away the fairy dust and the pie in the sky rhetoric when talking about this current Argentina national team..I repeat again, this is the WORSE Argentina national team (minus Messi) assemble together in decades.

    Argentina does not have the players right now to brag about superiority over teams like Paraguay, Ecuador, Venezuela, Chile, Peru etc. Not even going to mention Brazil, Uruguay and Colombia because they’re way ahead of Argentina styliscally, team play, speed, power and technical ability.

    • I can certainly agree that cheap shots aren’t necessary however saying this is the worst Argentina assembled is a stretch. This is a new Argentina team and they’ll need time. I like most of the player selections I am still not 100% sold on Scaloni. Lo Celso is a starter at Spurs, Dybala was serie A player of the year, Messi is Messi. LMQ just made the jump to Europe like Palacio’s. De Paul plays in the serie A and has been courted by a lot of good teams…him and Musso are the only reason Udinese is still in The serie A. Have some patience with this team. I’m Argentinian and have watched this team for 40 years…I have had my share of heartbreak from them but one thing I don’t do is overly criticize and give up on them.

    • I just want to remind you of your own promise to never support Argentina again and switch to Colombia, rings a bell? Expecting you to honour your word…

    • @glow-n-show

      > Argentina does not have the players right now to brag about superiority over teams like….

      Wat? Excluding Messi, Di Maria, Aguero, Banega, A Gomez, we have plenty of players to brag about.

      Some already world class or in that direction, others are fan favorites, best of league, or generally having positive careers. I’m sure i’m forgetting names but Dybala, Martinez, Ocampos, Lo Celso, De Paul, Emi Martinez, Musso, Benitez, Dominguez, Tagliafico, Lisandro Martinez, Quarta, Paredes (shaky psg start but gaining trust slowly), A Correa, Icardi (I’m assuming he’ll be called), etc.

      Go ahead and do head to head comparison of each these players against ALL of your listed countries. Brazil edges on paper but none of the rest.

  42. Few take aways

    1) Decent game, did not expect worldie performance given the long haidus and 1-2 days of practice. Glad we got the points. 🙂

    2) MQ and Montiel – so glad to see them. MQ especially, he seemed to naturally fit in as if he’s been there for a few years. With Montiel, yeah, not the best so maybe Scaloni will try Foyth next game but i def want to see more of Montiel.

    3) During Copa i was over the moon to see Scalonis formational consistency. i think he was the 1st coach in a long time to stick with same formation for more than 2-3 games. After all, i developed PTSD from Sampaoli trainwreck chaotic experiments. With the recent success of 4312 narrow, i’m not sure why Scaloni decided to change formations especially knowing we had such limited time (maybe he felt 442 against Brazil was better result, who knows)

    4) Double pivot with Paredes and De Paul wasn’t a good choice. I’d much rather see De Paul a bit more advanced on the right side with B2B freedom, covering for Messi and owning the right wing with Montiel. (If double pivot is a must, perhaps Lo Celso would do better in central deeper role as hes getting plenty of exposure there under Mou).

    5) Tagliafico + Acuna aka 2 full backs didn’t work. This is probably the least controversial point. I would prefer to see Tagliafico + Dominguez / Lo Celso / Palacios + Ocampos own the left flank.

    6) El Fideo. What can i say, its just insane to leave Di Maria home especially considering 2019/2020 is one his BEST SEASONS EVER. We simply cannot leave him home.

    7) Icardi. I understand when people say Icardi would not have helped at all but im not sure. If anything, dribbling and build up were toothless and wasn’t working anyway so maybe a guy like Icardi would have been better. Predator in the box waiting to capitalize on 1 or 2 chances. Icardi does have incredible positioning and spacial awareness. I can easily see Messi finding the him from outside the box.

    8) Ocampos. Shout out to him. Worked his tail off, very direct but did not create too many dangerous plays for Ecuador. Glad hes on board for years to come.

    • Agree 100% with #3. De Paul was underutilized in this role.

      Di Maria should have been a sub. Salvio brought nothing and frankly do not know why he was selected to begin with.

      Icardi is a dressing room problem, right or wrong. If you don’t live in Argentina – like me – then you may not understand why Icardi is such a polarizing figure

      • Agree, De Paul was not used correctly, Against Ecuador he could barely pass half. A player like him won’t have much attacking effect from there. I’d rather him be helping the defence than sending Hail Mary long balls into a box when the opposition has everyone I. The 18 yard box…If it was allowed Ecuadors coach would have been standing there too

      • You might be right about the dressing room issue but its just rumors so i take it with a grain of salt. We dont know why hes excluded. For now, with Aguero, Dybala, and Martinez, we have plenty of 9s but Icardi can bring something else that these guys cant.

  43. First game together after almost a year. It wasn’t our best game, but the most important thing is that we won and got 3 points.
    1 down and 17 to go, with a Copa in-between.

    The midfield lacked creativity this game, I agree. But let’s keep in mind that we had 2 players out that Scaloni was counting on; Lo Celso and Dybala.
    A 3-man midfield of De Paul, Paredes, Lo Celso gives Paul and Celso more options of creativity and going forward.
    A 4-man midfield with double pivot in this case, with Acuña and without Lo Celso, killed the creativity but made us strong defensively. Normally I think our 4-man midfield ought to be a double pivot of Paredes and Lo Celso, with Ocampos on the left and De Paul on the right

    Hope to see Quarta remain on Tuesday but with Medina on his left. And of course for Emi Martínez to make his NT debut either then or in November qualifiers.

    Di Maria could have been an awesome super-sub in this match, instead of Salvio. He could have an important role in the 23, but as a super-sub and not as a starter.

  46. The thing is you can’t come into conclusions about players like Paredes, De Paul and even younger players like Lo Celso, Palacios etc. They have just started their NT careers after Scaloni came.It will be foolish and illogical but that’s what we are.

    We can talk if and when these guys play as much matches as Masche, Biglia etc etc. But the current crop of midfielders r defenitely more dynamic and varient than our previous group. As per me.

    I for one don’t think to be a better NT player that player don’t defently have to play in a Big club.But different people different opinions.

  47. It was morally a good win considering situations..

    Players were rusty, not in sync on passes, heavy touches, etc..hopefully it will subside with game time..

    We miss creativity in midfield – don’t we…it looked like we had 7 defenders protecting Armani

  48. What argentina need to do now is just finish the play with a shot on goal. Back pedal when necessary but don’t do that the whole game. You need to take a shot whether it’s outside the box or inside. Finish the play.

  49. How many world cup qualifying experience Salvio got ? He is a decent player in his Benfica days but he’s alreay30. Why don’t we bring young players like Buendia in that position. Also we can omit Di Maria in the actual World cup but not in the world cup qualifiers. We have to agree after Messi it’s Maria the most important player. At least he will bring his experience. We are going to miss him in La Paz. Paredes n Otamendi are always a step away from red card. Considering the experience we can accept Otamendi. Exactly what Paredes brings to the team ? He can’t be our Pirlo. No one can be too. Why not we try Foyth in Paredes position. Foyth is energetic but error prone. Instead of taking him in RB or CB we can try him in Defensive midfield. Scaloni is a learner. Nothing wrong with that but they should be learning their trades in club football with day today experience and then enter national team. Still unable to digest the fact that neither Messi nor AFA understand the seriousness of getting a good coach. Our biggest enemy is our past. Our past players are still having the influence in AFA. Ayala and Samuel are still defense players not defense coaches. They are new to the circle. We are wasting so many talents. Dybala is still not given a reasonable chance. Surprise n sad but still we keep selecting Armanis n Salvios. Scaloni is not our man. Either the coach should be a good tactician or a tricky coach like Mourinho. If not in the either.. results will be average with occasional peaks.

  50. “How many Olympic Gold medals does Parades and De Paul have?”

    @Kid, how many Copa Americas and Champions Leagues did Biglia win? It was 3 or 4 years ago when you compared Biglia to the great F. Redondo and you claimed that Biglia was a more successful player than Redondo. Everybody in this forum failed to understand your logic that day and today you are contradicting yourself once again. According to your logic, Biglia was a more successful player than Redondo so it’s OK to say De Paul is more successful than the GREAT Mascherano. Deal with it, man! Your contradiction has no limit.

    • Redondo in the national team was not as successful as Biglia. This is a true statement! Redondo was great for Real Madrid but never the same player for Argentina. Biglia have always been consistent in Argentina. The problem was the coaches trying to make Biglia an attacking player. Biglia in 2018 should never be in the Argentina world cup squad, I’ll give you that. Moreover, Biglia was the captain of Argentina’s successful 2005 U20 world cup triumph. So again, Biglia came out of the most talented Argentina youth era..Nothing against Redondo but his national team contribution was minimal at best. Saying De Paul and Paredes are both better than Masche and Gago is just pure crazy talk. I’m not saying those guys can’t play though. Sure a lot of Spanish players are in low level clubs in La Liga but you don’t see them in Spain national team. I was a fan of Redondo when he was at Real Madrid and several others of the players on that Real Madrid roster.

      • “Redondo in the national team was not as successful as Biglia”

        Tell me how many Copa Americas did Biglia win?

        We all know Redondo won a Copa with the National team, so what did Biglia achieve with the NT?

        • And what? Redondo literally showed nothing for us considering his talent. idiot Passarella omnitted him. Biglia has 2 Copa finals, the different is only the luck. Biglia played in a WC final, Redondo best is last16. Btw Copa 91 and 93 were farmer copas back then, Brazil without their superstars is not Brazil. How many Copas would have won Redondo against Romario, Bebeto etc. etc etc. Probably a big zero.

          • “Brazil without their superstars is not Brazil”

            😂😂😂😂

            Any news about Malcolm? I consider you a Brazil fan, not Argentina fan… Plz, give us some updates on Malcolm and Paqueta.

          • “Biglia has 2 Copa finals”

            Since when did being a runner-up become better than being a champion? I’m saying El Principe won the Copa and you are u saying Biglia was a runner-up and that’s enough to make him a better player. Is that the fucking Brazilian mindset?

            Put this discussion aside and give us some updates on Paqueta and Malcom, that is what you are good at.

          • Who said Biglia is better than Redondo? But he showed much more than Redondo in NT. Clear fact, and sorry dont interest in farmer Copa. WC showed clearly how much were its worth.

  51. I remember during the 2006 world cup when players like Mascherano came on the international scene how the commentators were blushing over him. Mascherano is the guy who mastered the slide tackle which many players afterwards emulated into their game. Mascherano is the guy who could sprint from his end of the pitch to the opponent 18 yard box without losing the ball..Argentina just doesn’t have these types of players today..Paredes just passes the ball to the center circle or backwards towards his goalkeeper direction. Now and then he will make an ambitious 40 yard pass like the one he did against Ecuador. I remember how Dani Alves was frustrated with Paredes because he didn’t move in position to receive a one, two combination link up play.

    The problem for Argentina is the local league, money is always an issue but given how European top clubs are ignoring Argentinian players/young talent the people running the local football need to reform the league so it can actually match or come close to the standard of modern European football. If the Argentinian league is strong again then the players will benefit from it. Just playing league games for the sake of playing is not going to develop the young players into proper footballers.

    Make the local league better and stronger so that players can actually remain there instead of moving to the MLS or some mid table below par European clubs. It’s tough times financially for the Primera but shipping off the players so young that they get lost in the European system is not good for the future of Argentina national team. It’s like a kid going through the foster care system, the kid might have plenty of potential but at the same time the foster care system can have bad influential on his/her future, Whilst if this said kid is in a stable home s/he is likely to grow up with better values..For Argentina to be a respected national team again the leaders need to make the league stronger and better. River Plate and Boca Juniors should be able to compete with Bayern, Liverpool, Barcelona, Juventus, Real etc. in a respective way.

    • I understand the part of making Argentina primera division strong but to say without strong league world class talents will not appear is wrong.
      Argentina clubs have very good academies and institutions where they make players.
      See the french league they hardly able to hold of their best youngsters and it is not the best league either but still producing world class talents. Brazil is an another example.
      And comparing Paredes with masche is just not fair since both of them have different attributes.
      Paredes moves the ball faster in the midfield and his vision is quite good. Yes, he is little bit static and defensively not the best. But, he always starts our attack. Since presumably we don’t want our full backs to partake in attack, Paredes creativity can be handful.

      • Ok dude, please name a single a world class kid emerged from Argentine league who have the prospect of becoming world’s best player after 4-5 years.
        After, Dybala there is not even a single argentine who has the potential to be a mega star.

      • You can’t compare Argentina to Lique One, it’s just not the same..French young players are constantly playing in the UCL and Europa league every season. Teams like Monaco, PSG, Lyon, Marseille etc. give young players the exposure at the highest level at a young age before they’re shipped off to new clubs across Europe. In Argentina youth players don’t have this opportunity despite solid youth academy structure. Moreover, the Argentina u20 teams have not been doing good at the youth tournament since 2007.

        The French mostly sell their top young talents to the best clubs (despite some being overrated) unlike Argentina who currently sell it’s best young talents to the teams bidding 5-15 million dollars while the offers are usually from Russia, Poland, Ukraine, lower half of the table Serie A clubs etc.

        I don’t know if it’s a branding issue or a financial issue but you can’t compare Brazil and France youth players to Argentina youth players in the current market.

        As for Paredes, I’m done with this conversation, I just don’t think this guy is as good as people here making him out to be..

  52. Gago wasn’t even supposed be footballer
    Let it a lone he is better than parades
    After messi parades is one of the few
    Players consistently perform for nt
    Parades can pass better than gago
    If he wants certainly scores better than him
    Isn’t fair to pick parades a lone all the time
    Like everything is his fault
    Who was Argentina player who made
    Team of the tournament in copa 19.

  53. ”If you re a logic man allow parades &
    De paul play half of matches mascherano and gago
    Played than judge them.”

    How many Olympic Gold medals does Parades and De Paul have? 2004-2014 was the great Argentina era on the modern international stage. Post 2014 ———> Worst generation.

    • I don’t know what to say to you
      If you talking irrelevant gold medal Olympics
      I Don’t count as silverware isn’t even
      Fifa recognize competition what are you talking about?
      That means you re blind follower
      So call golden generation get over it man

      Parades and De pual will hopefully do
      What other Argentina recently history players couldn’t do it Which is winning copa next year.

    • How many medals did Tissone that you said should have been called up, have?

      And why are you not on Colombian National Team blog but here instead?

    • Argentina has had star studded teams in the past and where has it gotten them? Being hung up on players close to retirement isn’t right. The average age of Chiles starting line up is like 31 years old and they didn’t look like they were going to last against Uruguay. Argentina only had 3 players in their 30’s last night and one was the keeper. Integrating young players into the team is smart and there will be growing pains but they are talented players. The De Paul hate here is crazy. He’s an outstanding player, Granted everyone is allowed to have a poor match and last night wasn’t his best but he’s young and skilled. He’s a must in the team along with Lo Celso

  54. Fernando Gago was a top talent who was hampered by injuries. None of our current midfielders are as good as him. Gago of 2013 with nt was a joy to watch. His vertical passing was something else. Paredes is not even half good.

  55. I think a lot of y’all are worried about Chile and Uruguay over nothing. Let’s be real they didn’t play a great game yesterday. Plus all the players are old. Suarez, Godin, Alexis Sanchez, Vidal will be worn out mid season.

  56. Please anyone clear me..
    I believe that more die heart fan is present here..Kindly anyone give a proper answer for today’s match?
    1st qus: why paulo was not in the squad?
    2nd qus:everybody know , even all world know that emi martinez is much better than armani or andreda.. But why he was not selected? There was any political issue?
    3rd qus: is acuna a creative midfielder? A fool man or a mad or a little baby who knows that papu gomez is now world class midfielder.. Who was best sirea midfielder last season. Even this year he is fantastic, last 3 games he scores 4 goals and 2 assists..but he didn’t get any chance today’s match.
    4th qus: how were paredes and montile performance? Is Salvio deserve the national team Jersey?
    5th qus: are you happy for today’s match? Do you think we need to more strong team selection and change our team setup.

    • 1. see below to @rosubha

      2. scaloni has decided to go with continuity between the post. and also because of lack of playing time a back three of montiel-quarta-armani made sense to him due to familiarity. for now armani is his #1 and it seems he will not change unless probably big mistake or injury. maybe things can change next game…

      3. (a) acuna is not creative mid. he is the typical “23rd man on the sheet”. Someone who can play many positions and thus reduces coaches selection headache. In absence of lo celso scaloni went with him to start. (b) papu deserved a substitution maybe. But after the hour as the game was very physical and tight seems like scaloni opted to keep it defensive by swapping ocampos to the left instead of introducing papu in the left or in the middle.

      4. (a) within the 2 man set up he was ok partnering with depaul. One or two crucial clearances in the box. And one or two interesting passing plays. kept the ball well in patient circulation to invite the Ecuadorian line forward to make room behind for the attack but connectivity in build up was not clicking.
      (b) mixed performance. showed desire to advance the play and looked for ocampos and messi to feed and receive. a few nervous touches but nothing that ended up proving dangerous. one or two occasions where was in danger of losing the winger and had to play catch up.
      (c) who deserves a jersey is a mixed question. sometimes one can deserve because of skill, another time because of emergency, another time because of chemistry, because of…

      5. (a) Personally I am always happy if we win. Any day I will prefer to win even in penalties and 3 red cards versus losing but being “exciting”.
      (b)What does strong imply? Defensively strong? Attack strong? In international football balanced team selection is most important. scaloni has done well with defensive strength in transition time with old generation is going out and as new one coming in, but hasn’t found the opposite attack strength while keeping the balance. his attack game is dull like bauza but at least he is compact and solid.
      (c) again style of play is not important to me, so if the result is there personally i am not concerned with setup.

  57. Dybla was best player in Serie A last season,we can see Lautaro inconsistency in Serie A. Lautaro can not handle long balls that is a weakness.
    Dybla brings fludity in game and that is why whole team performs well. Just like Firmino with Liverpool.

  58. When are we going to see Messi and Dybala play together?? Is it ever going to happen…really hurts to see a quality attacker like Dybala sit out of the side for so long…This is the biggest problem Scaloni should focus on, if he can get this equation working, Argentina will surely be back in contention for winning the cup in 2022. Just cannot afford to keep Dybala bench warming

    • They did play together against Uruguay in November last year, and did it well. If I’m not mistaken, Scaloni has said that he plans on playing Dybala, Lautaro and Messi at the same time. What probably makes the most sense for that is a 4-3-1-2 with Lautaro and Dybala in front of Messi, with a De Paul, Paredes and Lo Celso midfield.
      4-3-2-1 with Dybala and Messi behind Lautaro also works.

  59. what is the problem with this Argentine local media in 2014 WCQ romero was first choice and he never played for river or boca but media didnt downgrade him only since 2018 WCQ this demand of using old(30 years) local based players has risen even in 2014 WC Argentina NT had only 3 local based players rest were from Europe. Why dosent Argentine media highlight Argentine youth players like Pourtau,Roffo, Julian Alvarez, Alexander Barboza etc. It would help them get transfer to decent Europe clubs instead of hyping 30 to 35 years old Argentina based players ( no offence to them though)

    • Logic was simple, Romero was the most experience GK Argentina had and he consistently did well. Romero did nothing wrong to drop from NT so that media behind him. But in the case of Armani it’s different. Armani is the most experience among any GK in the squad, he also have two big tournament experience and did nothing wrong in last matches played for Argentina to drop. Media is angry towards Emi Martinez because he can’t walk into Argentina 11 without experience in a crucial WCQ match just because playing in Europe. For God Shake Emi Martinez not played a single match for Argentina can’t walk into starting 11 when Experience Armani is there. If Armani wasn’t called up then media won’t be vocal for Andrada because both Andrada and musso played 2 matches respectively for Argentina so between them anyone deserve to start as no1 which isn’t possible when Armani is there. When Romero called up last time he played both friendlies, no GK in Argentina able to bench Romero when he is in the squad.

  60. In Bolivia match hopefully Emiliano martinez dosent start because he has not played in bolivia before (Argentine Media would downgrade him if he dosent perform well in bolivia match)but maybe armani or andrada should start for this bolivia match only but in later WC qualifiers hopefully either of Musso or Martinez is 1st choice based on their form.

  61. ”I think De Paul – Paredes duo is better than the duo of Mascherano and Gago. We have so many good players in the Middle than before.”

    This is an absurd statement, really absurd statement..Firstly, let me know when any of De Paul and Paredes can play for either Barcelona or Real Madrid..Secondly, both Mascherano and Gago won the Olympic gold medal playing together. Thirdly, during the 2014 WCQ qualifiers Argentina scored record amounts of goals with Gago and Mascherano in midfield. Let’s see if Paredes or De Paul can make an assist for Messi like what Gago did away to Chile or Gago initiating a counter attack that led to a superb goal against Ecuador during the 2014 WCQ campaign. I could go on. None of these guys are as good as Mascherano thumb let alone being better midfielders..

    These current Argentinian players are mediocre at best and do not belong in the same league as Gago and Mascherano. ”So many good players in the middle than before?” Is this a joke man? Come on, stop hyping up average players..

    This is easily the worst Argentinian team with its worst generation..

    • A sad truth…but all the teams are struggling with it… there have been no replacements for riquelme, maschernao, pirlo , xavi, iniesta, ronaldinho, ozil and the list goes on
      1. The thing that I like the most with current crop of players is that they are more physical and have a tremendous work rate
      2. With gio lo celso returning I guess the team would become more creative in the midfield.
      3. Lucas martinez had a real good game and montiel needs time to establish himself as a RB
      4. This team is more solid at the back than previous teams and if they play with each other for longer periods that might build up their team chemistry
      5. In the last qualifiers…arg in its last game (do or die) ecuador scored an easy right at the start of the game and messi had to score a hatrick to win us the game and even sabella had trouble in the qualifying for the world cup 2014…so my opinion is that with time this team will find its grove

    • No one deying mascherano and was legend.No point crying over mascherano and gago.
      If you re a logic man allow parades &
      De pual play half of matches mascherano and gago
      Played than judge them.

      Don’t worry if this is Argentina worst generation Maybe this worst generation of Argentine
      Will win some silverware after 20 odd years.

    • “I think De Paul – Paredes duo is better than the duo of Mascherano and Gago. We have so many good players in the Middle than before.”
      Whoever
      said this either he is trying show he knows some extra dimensions of football or he thinks other members are damn fool.
      Argentina is crying for antother Mascherano type of midfielder. Mascherano was a power house in the midfield efficient destroyer with great passing range. Gago was injury prone but when he was fit he was great till WC 2014.
      Even 35 years olds Banega will be better than Paredes, he can dictate the midfield the way no current Argentine midfielder can.

    • You claim to know football… Am very much ashamed of you being an Argentine supporter, football is being played by average united players not global superstars who claim to know football, This Argentina team is average I agree but they have unity, togetherness and team work… And that will take them far.. ESPN pundits can say all they like about Argentina but the end will justify the means….upon all superstars and the hype and foreign coaches working in England what have they won for the last ten years…. Nobody is forcing you to support Argentina…. We love our player weather they are mediocre or not. Their first match in a year.. They did well.. They are also humans and they can have an off day.. The hall mark of a good team,is to know how to win ugly… In a football tournament some start well and always finish bad, others also start poorly and finish well… It is early days stop calling them mediocre. For the first time.. I see Messi being happy in a team…. I have never seen him such happy in an Argentine camp… They will surely improve as time goes on….. USMST…. Can have all the global superstars for all I care.. But remember Argentine soccer team always does well when they play as a team than having, a superstars among them…. This team is an extraordinary team and they will be very difficult to beat…. Trust me… For so many years I see and are very much confidence when the boys are playing…… Their confidence translate into the team….. Don’t compare them to any team and let them grow as a team….

  62. i don’t think i have seen more boring game than this game .playing with two left backs for 62 minutes is very boring.if u are going to play 442 why not choose one of the best in the business dimaria.when i thought it wouldn’t get more dull in come salvio another right back from the 62 minutes forawrd argentina were playing with two right backs booooooring

  63. Time is coming rethink about defence. Scaloni should find otamendi replace.He perform too bad and also think about a Leftback who can challenge tagliafico.I think Lisandro Martinez could be a better Lb then tagliafico

  64. Acuña played great defensively. I think he should play in the midfield against teams that will attack us like Brazil Uruguay Chile etc. we can get break always with him but he did not contribute offensively against Ecuador. I still think he is essential to the squad due to the many positions he can play but with that being said put papu in the next game over acuna. Sub acuna in when/where needed.

  65. We’re underdog in this world cup qualifiers.

    Brazil, Columbia, Chile, Uruguay are all better than us. They can beat us somehow easily.

    Peru and Paraguay are better organized than us and we don’t have any significant edge over them.

    This will be a very tough qualifier for Argentina NT and we will get worse because our players always do worse under pressure.

  66. Last qualifiers we only beat 4 teams: Chile, Colombia, Bolivia, and Ecuador. We had 2 points for the first 3 games. It was against Colombia in the 4th game that we got our first victory with a goal of Biglia. It was a very traumatic qualifier and the Argentinean coaching staff is well aware of that. The team was tense, players like Paredes and DePaul did not have a good influence therefore did not help the team in circulating the ball. If we have players like Acuna and Ocampos we can’t control the ball the way we want. It is a good start and let’s hope we improve because we have players for that.

  67. Considering the long absence and minimum amount of training. I think this was a good result. Whatever quality of players Equador used, we were not on the receiving end of that many shots on Goal either. So it’s a credit to Scaloni and his team. Can’t complain much about players or formation either. All r humans. No player is perfect not even Messi.

    It’s now a proven fact that Armani is Scaloni first preferred GK. It has been always since day 1 for whatever reason. He sees something in Armani which is OK. Scaloni has confidence in Armani. Then it’s fine.

    I would like to see what Armani can bring to the table against Bolivia. It would be unfair if Emiliano or Andrada starts and they eat goals(Which may probably happen) . People will bash them. So let’s stick with Armani he has better chemistry with our defence. And to be frank he looked fine today. But Bolivia would be different. The breathing issues and the ball also may behave wildly in those height. Let’s see. Kudos to Scaloni for the win and to the players.

    • Stopping Bolivia there will be very difficult. Using Emi Martinez and throwing him from the next selection is a real possibility now. Otherwise Emi would have started the first game as reported. And Armani or Andrada in the second.

      • Making Emiliano debut for us in Bolivia would be unfair to him. The Argentine Media will bash him like anything if we eat, say 3 goals(Just saying). But Armani or Andrada meanwhile would not be bashed that much. Becoz both r playing in Argentine league. I would be happy if we squeeze in with a draw. Armani or Andrada may be better suited considering they may have played in Bolivia before. (I don’t know wheather they actually have played there) but they r playing in South American climatic conditions. So it’s better I guess to play either Armani or Andrada.

  68. One thing which is clear now is that our best forward trio is Messi, Aguero and Dybla. This is reliable trio. We can not rely on Lautato and Ocampus as in Serie A Lautato is inconsistent, someday he is awesome other day he is average same with Ocampus too. But they can be great substitute.

    • “We cannot rely on Lautaro and Ocampos.”
      Can you stop this.
      What Dybala has done till now for NT. Aguero always put us in trouble with his injury. I love both. But don’t say we can’t rely on Lautaro and Ocampos.

      Who won the penalty yesterday..?
      Lautaro scored 8 goals in last 5 games. Scored in all the 5 matches. He couldn’t scored yesterday. How many opportunities were there..? You didn’t see Ecuador filled with bodies in penalty area..?

      Discuss about midfield. How we can improve the offensive play if there is no creativity in midfield. When Paredes and DePaul played two deep who will do the creativity..? It’s again our famous 424? Defend with 6 and hope for the best of attacking 4? Without any midfield creativity.?

      • I think De Paul – Paredes duo is better than then duo of Mascherano and Gago. We have so many good players in the Middle than before. I remember we always had a defencive Midfield trip of Biglia, Masche, Enzo which offered no creativity. Gago was not there after 2014 Banega was not used much as much he should have. Pastore was so and so. Augusto rarely played due to injury. Lamela, Lanzini. Etc etc but none of them constantly played for us in the middle. We were usually painful to watch in the Midfield. Banega – Pastore combo would have tried more. It’s sad that we saw both playing together in 1 or 2 matches. Irony is all coaches we had in the past favored Masche, Biglia, Enzo combo. Not disrespecting them in any way. But our current Midfield crop is better and all of them r young too. Palacios, Nico, Lo Celso, Macellister, Zaraco, Paredes, De Paul. That’s some good Midfield players. They may not be world class playing in big clubs. But they will do better for the NT eventually. Add to that now Papu. Scaloni has all these in his head. I m happy that Scaloni is not some one who goes back to the Di Maria’s and Banega. Which will not take us anywhere. Give them time our Midfield will look good and effective.

        • Mccallister is not great.. nico domiguez needs to build up his workrate…he is not even in the starting 11 of the bottom finishing bologna side…same with palacios…he is not playing well…no work rate…not a starting 11 for bayer
          i would pick someone like emi buendia, gonzalo escalante and lisandro martinez

        • Banega is way better than Paredes (both defense and attack). Scaloni effed up big time by not having Paredes and Banega compete for the past 2 years. Really stupid move on his part.

          As for El Jefecito, there is no world where any current player is better than him or comes close to his contribution to the NT. Masche left a gaping hole in our midfield and no one is stepping up to take his role. Ascacibar, Battaglia, Paredes, etc not one of them is there yet.

  69. I think it is better to defend more and attack less is the best plan against bolivia. Too much running in field cause damage to our players physical ability. So better to stay back and defend well . Try to counter against a speedy Bolivians ..

  70. ”What does the so called world class manager could guarantee anyway? England has tried with great foreign managers like Cappalo and Erikson and it gets them nowhere.”

    Again when you defend mediocrity you get a statement like this with no real context. The current English players are being coached by the best coaches in the world for some period of time now, coaches like Mourinho, Pep, Pochettino and klopp. How many Argentinean players have had the opportunity to play under these coaches in the last several seasons? If you exclude Aguero, Otamendi, Rojo, Romero and Lamela you’re only left with Lo Celso..Fyoth is average hence the reason he is not playing for Spurs.. So with the English national team Southgate has the luxury of selecting players being coached and trained by the best coaches in the world at club level.

    When Errikson and Capello coached England Sir Alex Ferguson was the only name brand coach in the EPL before Mourinho came along and made a name for himself in the league.

    This is an average Argentina team with a coaching staff that is in over their heads.. ESPN pundits will laugh at this team every single day.. The USMNT in the next coming years (after Messi, Aguero and Di Maria finally retire) will have a stronger national team with bigger global stars compared to Argentina..

    • 7 of the starters have never played a WC qualifier before. This team hasn’t played together in a year. There are nerves there are injuries to key players. It was a scrappy game but they never looked like they were going to lose. Losing faith and patience after one game (that they won) is silly. It was an extremely physical game..You can’t always play pretty in those types of games. If you’re expecting 3 or 4 nothing wins all of the time then you’ll never be satisfied. Take some positives like Martinez Quartas performance. Everyone hated Bilardo in 86, Argentina played scrappy at Italia 90 and went to the final…2002’s pretty team got killed at the WC…2006’s was same…It seems when Argentina guts out those 1-0 wins they always seem to make finals…2014 as well…Defence got them further than fancy foot work and panenkas

    • > The USMNT in the next coming years (after Messi, Aguero and Di Maria finally retire) will have a stronger national team with bigger global stars compared to Argentina..

      Not a chance my friend. Gentlemen’s bet..not sure how to execute but if i win, you owe me 10 Choripanes and if you win, i’ll owe you 10 Arepas. Deal?

  71. Everyone has said enough, so I’d keep it short.
    Same old, Same Old. Timid, nervous, directionless and no leadership on and off the pitch. And with the player selections (typical of Argentine Managers of the last 20 years), who makes these decisions, the puppets (Scaloni n co.) or the Masters (Tapia, Angelici, D’Onorfio, n Tinelli)?

    The City Group have signed 19 year old Tiago Palacios for 350k from second div side Platense (same club that produced Trezequet). He will stay in Argentina till December n after that he will be placed with one of their subsidiary club. He is an attacking mid.
    Redondo’s son Federico is attracting interest from Europe. He is a 17 yr old Defensive mid with Argentinos reserves. Redondo has played down those rumours, saying Federico has a long way to go for that. Sadly, Redondo’s elder son didn’t make it suffering a series of injuries. Wonder if he is still playing?

  72. I want to say a couple things that will make many angry here, but logical people will understand.
    First of all good win, great first half, a bit sloppy second half.
    2nd, anyone who thinks AFA has no money knows nothing about argentine sports nor about the country as a whole.
    The AFA is a bit like a mafia, same family, same leaders for decades, they got money. That isn’t why they chose scaloni… Because he is cheap, no because he knows the system and will listen to the heads of the mafia.
    Three, I don’t claim to know the in and out of Spanish football or Spain, nor do I claim to be an expert of Asian Football India, etc. The wise never claim to be experts of that which they don’t know.
    And finally about the match, I have to mention that acuna did well. I wasn’t happy with Taglafico nor otamendi. Everyone else did a good job. Maybe L martinez was lacking, but I feel that he is too nervous beside Messi at times. Passing in first half was a delight to watch. Ecuador isn’t an easy team for those that aren’t aware of their footballing history. I was very happy to see young players start and young local boys subbed in second half. Good game.

  73. We have to admit, that Scaloni, Aimar, Ayala and Samuel knowledge, experience and understanding about football are beyond our comparison. But the sub and benching the best and in form players arise and raise my curiosity. What the stupidity if you have Papu and Palacios in your disposal but did not maximized their in form, at least bring them at second half

    Maybe, in my wild thinking and feeling it is just that Scaloni and his gang knows to wins the local fans heart or being ‘forced’ to used domestic based player, that’s why Armani (River Plate) and Salvio (Boca Junior) have to selected them.

    • Actually may not be relevant . Bolivia has kept 9 players in lapaz who are training & not travelling for the Brazil game. So they may be good from rest standpoint. Having said we have some advtgs :
      1) the Bolivian football association presidency fight has turned very nasty & divided local clubs into 2 camps . The 2 top clubs who also play in Copa Libertadores ( Bolivar & Wilstermann ) are in opposing camp & not releasing their players. Hence Bolivia for sure wont have lot of their good players.
      2) The 5 substitute rule will be very helpful for our players . Coach can look at the most struggling players & more rotating options.

        • true that . great opportunity to try Martinez quarta & Medina as CB pair. The ball moves crazily there & long range shooters like Parades, Guido , Lautaro can be crucial. I dont think we can play high press there. We rather sit back & break on the counter.

  75. First match of a long upcoming WCQ session and we won it. It just augurs well. The qualifiers are a long time and we will get enough time to progress. Also , its not prudent to judge selection and performances right away. Lets us go 5-6 matches deep we will have a clearer picture. I do trust Scaloni and team in that I believe they are capable enough to put together a good team. Messi trusts him. Sure he has challenges in terms of pressure to play certain players (maybe ?). But that tbh does not bother me as long as we dont stick with same options that dont work. Any legendary coach coming in will have the same pressures. I think we have enough talent in Argentina to win the highest cup. I do not believe to win a tournament like WC you absolutely need a team with the “so called best european league players”. We need a well drilled team that plays with intensity to win a tournament like WC.I see enough fight in the players since the Copa and I firmly believe with more time we will get better. We need to gradually improve and peak at the right time.

    • Yeah I think it would be right to start Dybla instead of Lautato, Dybla’s one touch passing
      is great and he also earns lot of fouls.Right now Dybla should start ahead of Lautaro.

      • isnt dybala down with gastroenteritis ? I doubt anyone can recover to full levels so fast. Must be fully dehydrated . Must be played only if in full fitness.

  76. Yeesh! What an ugly match, which was totally expected. The SA WCQ are the toughest thing out there, a rough and tumble cornucopia of bad tackles and even worse refereeing.
    To expect a team to play in a cohesive manner – after a whole year of being out of action with only 2 days of proper practice and preparation – is unrealistic people.
    The only conclusion I can come up with after watching this game is that one cannot and should not draw any conclusions, in fact this reminds me of the friendly match against Morocco last year with those terrible weather conditions (Argentina won that 1-0 also). The conditions (wind etc..) were so bad that no one in their right mind would draw any conclusions.

    Regarding player performances, Messi was Messi, Ocampos had some good moments, Lautaro was isolated, the midfield 3 were lost while the defense was decent (especially Quarta) even though they were hardly tested and Armani was good contrary to earlier expectations.
    Celso would be there normally ahead of Acuna, which is how it should be, especially if he gets to play behind Messi on the right side of the midfield.
    Paredes is a talented player but he lacks the defensive sensibility to be a no.5 and a real no.5 (Ascacibar) needs to be there beside him to cover for Paredes’s defensive shortcomings.
    I still maintain that Dybala should start ahead of Lautaro because creativity would come in handy in games such as this were the midfield is disjointed and where he’d have to take initiative and start start play-making (does that often with Juventus).
    Armani is a solid GK and has experience but I do think that a younger GK like Martinez or Andrade or Musso (when he recovers) should get the nod because you are building a team for the future.

    Over all a terrible looking game (as I expected) with a good outcome, which is the best one could hope for considering the conditions and sadly the next game in La Paz is not gonna be much better and our boys are gonna have to tough it out until they regain their rhythm.

    • well said. 1st game in a while so everyone needs to chill out and not be so fatalistic.

      For players, i really cant wait to see Ascacibar progress and agree with Dybala over Martinez would have been better. Shame he was out.

  77. Scaloni, Ayala, Aimar and Samuel have more experience than all of us combined. They know their players more than all of us combined. If coaching was that easy then Holland, England, etc. would have won more WC. Even Germany and France have their off days against week opponents. But they dont kill themselves like we do. Cristiano is a great player hence he cant win a WC. Icardi and Alario comparison is baseless and neither of them could have change the outcome of this match. Emi Martinez is my favorite but he wouldnt have made any difference today.
    All I am trying to say that football is not so straight forward Playstation Game as u are thinking. We had a bad day in the office just move on.. Let the management team handle it. Your frustration would not do any good to the team and especially neither yourselves. When Argentina have the right combination of players, skills, talents, tactics and luck we will win silverware if not we will just have to wait as we are waiting for years. If it does not come it does not come very simple. No matter what I will whine less and support more. My support will always be 100%. Thatswhy I am here in this thread since 2011.
    Vamos Albiceleste.

    • @shOvwar…I totally agree with you bro…✊✊✊But if Scaloni ignore Emi even Emi’s game is top calss now he will lose his moral…Emi tried very hard to get the level..So Scaloni should make him permanent gk till Copa…It will give him more boost. I think Emi’s overall game is far better than Armani 🤞🤞🤞
      It’s just my opinion…🤗🤗🤗

      • @Fahim… I agree with u too and I believe he will become our no 1 soon. Scaloni and team will get better at selection I see the trend. But this has nothing to do with this game. If you read my comment again you will realise y i wrote this.

    • Absolutely, everyone supports scaloni & co, we really don’t know there is an absurd decision with player selections.
      Armani will be 36 during the world cup why stick with him instead of Martinez.
      Salvio – he didn’t attempt single take on always back passes selected over gomez baffles me.
      Sacloni may protect players for Bolivia match lets see.

  78. I supported Scaloni from starting. I will support him. (AFA doesn’t have money to land world’s best coach anyway.)
    Scaloni’s team selection is good to very good, not excellent. Still, I am not aware why he drops some best players. No reason to stick with Armani. Anyway he’s not going to play in the next WC.
    Scaloni’s has good idea on defending but in offense he didn’t convince me still. I want him to make a balanced team good on both area. Now he transformed this team into a collective defending team. But the same is not happening in offense. Hope he improves there.

    • it is not scaloni’s team .it is aimar,scaloni,samuel ,ayala team .they are professional .so the poor performance is not the matter of managers but the limit ability of players. not too many play in big club that is the truth. so we need new bloods

    • What does the so called world class manager could guarentee anyway? England has tried with great foreign managers like Cappalo and Erikson and it gets them nowhere.

      The players also needs to turn up their game. Thats why Brazil and Germany still winning thropies in recent time. While Germany has WC players, Brazil didnt have many, but then even their aging player like Alves was able to elevate his game when playing competitive game.

  79. joaquin pereyra ,joaquin pereyra i ‘d say he is the suitable DM for argentina .just dont laugh ,paredes was a no 10 in boca junior many years ago and now is a DM .SO you may argue joaquin pereyra is not a DM but he has what a DM must have ( speedy ,tall, skillful ,able to distribute ball and shot ) but at the moment he is too young .

  80. Icardi was 2nd highest scorer for PSG last season after mbappe, 2nd highest Argentine goal scorer after messi. Farmer Alario hasn’t ability to score 1/4 of Icardi goals in whole career @Kavi

    • In ligue 1 Icardi scored 12 goals and 2 assist,i think this stat is below average for a striker who plays as starter.Even a midfielder can score 10 goals per season

      • Kavi, I think yours analysis is pretty poor to be honest.
        U r downgrading Icardi with Alario, who is basically a nobody compared to Mauro.
        Icardi may not be a lewandoski,Agureo potential striker but way way above than Alario(that’s for sure).

      • Ligue 1 was cancelled in midtime last season due to Covid-19, Icardi has 5 UCL goals 2nd after Mbappe. In all competition Icardi scored 20 plus goals, 2nd behind messi that too when most portion of the league matches hadn’t played proves Icardi is predator.PSG could have won UCL if Icardi came as substitute every football pundit says similar as well as PSG fans. Yes Icardi is world class reason played as no9 in top club in Europe unlike farmer Alario who is bench warmer in mediocre club.

    • Compare Icardi with Lautaro and Aguero. He’s competing with them for 9 position. Alario anyway last choice in the forward lineup, who is a hard working striker may be needed in some matches as a sub.
      Until Aguero retires, or Lautaro flops.. Icardi has no chance with Argentina.

      • It is disheartening to see when Lautaro performed bad and Aguero injured, Argentina need goals badly then put farmer Alario on the field taking off world class Lautaro. In this way Argentina can’t win anything, palacios in 2014 already cost world cup. When another world class striker playing for top club available why go towards bench warmer Alario. Farmer Alario isn’t Argentina caliber striker, Argentina NT isn’t peru or Paraguay @insider

        • Agree with ur point that Icardi is a better player than Alario, right now. But we are talking about a 3rd choice for number 9 role, that too for a team with Abundance of World class forwards with versatility. If manager can find a good chemistry and rhythm in forward with Alario as third choice number 9, it’s pretty ok. No need to bring in a Big name with problematic head, like Icardi to alter everything in the squad.

          • Today match is perfect example, if Argentina not scored from penalty spot what happen? Argentina doesn’t have option when needs goal, Alario can’t be the answer. A team is strong judged by number of world class player where Argentina known for dropping big names for famers, Zenetti 2010 Tevez 2014 and Icardi 2018. That’s the reason for Argentina trophy drought, I’m surprise how can any Argentina fan support farmer alario, if it were Brazil they never play bench warmer Alario ahead of Icardi.

        • Yesterday Dubala was not felt Okay, stomach problem or something. Otherwise he would have played. If you don’t understand how Alario differ from Icardi, no discussion anymore.

          You call Alario farmer or anything, as I said earlier, for Icardi the competition will be with Aguero and Lautaro. If one not available or as an alternative it will be Dybala. Alario will be the last option.
          Alario will compete with Simeone, Gaich etc for that position. It’s just a squad member, but same time if chosen as a sub, they should be ready to fight, and can score when opportunity arrives.

          • I’m against the Idea of taking farmer Alario who won’t beneficial at all, no need to waste one spot. Why to drop one of Lautaro Aguero Icardi all of them can be selected, this time I was more angry towards scaloni selection not called up Icardi when Aguero is injured and Armani called up reason had to start him due to pressure from media

  81. As I said earlier about Leo Paredes, after joining PSG he has turned into a backpass marchant and he never could defend to begin with . So we are with a defensive midfielder who can’t defend, does not run and does not play forward pass.

    Team is rusty due to one year gap. It will get better. Also Scaloni’s tactic did not help. It looked like e 4-2-3-1 like first half against Germany. It does not work for us. Players are too far and there are many gaps.

    • Hes the reason why we struggles. He needed DePaul to support him. And we became worse than Mascherano-Biglia double pivot. Atleast Mascherano’s passing and Tackling/Interception were superb. Untill we find a suitable replacement for Paredes or he himself progress to a world class DM..we haave no chance of winning any silverware. Even Banega would have done better.

    • actually if i am a team manager ,i wont choose paredes at all . he is not a proper DM just lack of speed ,and defensive skill at the same time his dribbling ability and passing skill is not that good at all ,he is not verrati type nor de jong type nor mascherano type .

  82. we must prepare for the worst case , this team is not that good at all. we can only play defensive football with fast, tall strong players for counter attack otherwise we cant even qualify . not too many players in big club that tell you the truth . because their manager is not a fool at all . they are professional ! if argentina cant change immediately .i think we need to spend another 4yrs

  83. we must admit this is the weakest team in 20yrs . you can see not many players in big club and most of them cant run ,dribble or even shot . i am not suprise this team finally cant qualify .
    it is not the matter of manager .it is all about lack of talent players .if argentina want to qualify ,scaloni need to find some new faces and bring in some new bloods.

    look at how poor lautaro martinez is , we need lukaku we need tall strong no.9
    look at paredes how slow he is ,too many mistakes we need de jong
    look at acuna absolutely useless, we need de bruyne .

    but at this moment ,we have nothing !

    • I do not know what kind of team you wants. Even France barely won against weak teams in EC qualification who are WC champion.Even some matches won by penalties
      France 1-0 Ireland
      France 1-1 Turkey
      France 2-0 Albania
      France 2-1 Moldova
      Even Netherlands barely won matches against weak teams in EC qualification it does not mean they are bad team and needs overhaul. Ecuador is much better than those teams

      • Hey Kavi!
        U r a troll, why the fuck you try to praise the players when even they aren’t playing to a NT standard who had the glory of winning 2world cups.
        No need to demean France, their squad have immense depth and talent compared to us (hate it or not, but this is the truth). Yesterday they thrashed Ukraine by 7-1 (is this a joke).
        Argentina blessed with some limited forwards but don’t know why they always fail to accommodate the best starting 11.

        • Leo Messi you are a kid and I usually I do not like to answer kids but I want to say you do not understand football. France thrashed Ukraine 7-1 ,even Argentina thrashed Ecuador 6-1 a year ago and also thrashed Mexico 4-0 but yesterday Mexico thrashed Germany 1-0.These things happen in football. I never downgraded France I want to say these things happen just chill.

          • I agree, people need to calm down. Sometimes you have to win ugly. We had some critical players injured that hurt our creativity. They got the 3 pots. That’s the most important. Martinez Quarta looked great

  84. poor performance and many players didnt qualify for national team. my rating for players

    armani: nothing special .
    otamendi:once again he should be retired.
    martinez quarta: decent performance ,able to distribute long ball but need to improve his defense skill.
    montiel: fast ,skillful but didnt strike a balance between defense and attack , still need more time to mature ,improve his defense skill

    paredes: useless ,clumsy ,didnt defense nor attack . i think his speed is very slow which limit his ability .but suppose as a DM he need to run run run to cover the whole midfield BUT failed. he is not a suitable defensive midfield

    de paul : decent but lack of creativity ,mostly look like a DM due to paredes ‘s poor performance

    acuna,lautaro: useless ,poor peformance

    ocampos: best player

    messi: nothing special at all

    conclusion:
    1, find a suitable speedy defensive midfield who can defense , dribble ,run, connect the midfield but not always pass the ball back to CM and as slow as turtle.

    2. drop lautaro martinez as no.9 even inter milan wont use him as no.9 .we need lukaku

    3.find wingers ,we only have ocampos .

    4.RB ,LB not up to expectation but we have lisandro martinez

    my suggestion

    tactic: this team is the weakest in 20years ,we can only play defensive football so we need speedy ,strong ,tall players for counter attack and corner kicks

    suitable player: joaquin correa( fast,skilfull ,tall,all round ) benjamin garre( his skill is the best in younger generation need to promote to NT) , Rodrigo battaglia / joaquin pereyra (they are the suitable DM i want ), facundo medina ( may be he can be a decent LB) LAST BUT NOT LEAST GAICH ( we need a strong no.9)

  85. I’m pretty sure this forum will break into hell and demand Scaloni’s immediate sacking if we lose at La Paz. The majority of this forum seems to be pretty dismissive about the team after the 1st match of WCQ. Considering the past results and history of sufferings of European based teams like Argentina and Brazil at height, a draw would be a good result for now. Sabella’s team drew, although they would have been the winner if not for the misses from Palacios and Messi. The last team to win there was Peckerman’s team in 2005. Argentina has to play it smart at La Paz. The air will be thin, the ball will travel faster in the air. At height, it’s difficult to judge the ball in the air due to it’s faster speed. Hence Bolivians will attack through the wings and provide crosses. They will shoot from outside of the box frequently. They don’t have players to play possession football and break the defensive line. The team needs to be compact defensively and ruthless in the attacking. There’s no need to go on full-attacking mode. We saw what happens if we do, courtesy to Maradona. The best strategy is to run smartly, conserve energy and counterattack effectively. There won’t be a lot of clear chances to score. If we can utilize our few chances we can earn a win.

  86. I once again make a case for Ricardo Centurion and Thiago Almada. We need skillful, creative and confident forward players. Players who are not heavily reliant on one leg and players who have the ability to’ pull a rabbit out of a hat.’
    Some people here are saying our display wasn’t impressive and I’m not surprised.

    • Having Centurion is like having Neymar in the team; unfortunately bad attitude and lack of discipline spoil his own career. Scaloni have a lot of choice, maximed Papu Gomez, Dybala and Palacios, Lo Celso it’s more than enough.

      But still called Salvio and make him a subs; sometimes make us curious and fatique

      • I like your analogy Cleanball. Centurion is like Neymar and just like Neymar helped Messi win @ Barcelona, Centurion may also help Messi win trophies with Argentina. Are you more concerned about good behaviour or of winning trophies? Furthermore I don’t see Centurion misbehaving ‘in front of Messi.’
        NB I believe Centurion is better than the players you mentioned Cleanball.

  87. I don’t want Bring this but some people
    Unfairly critisise scaloni and his players
    First game almost a year with tough
    Ugly physical ecuador top of that seven of starting 11 were thier first sa qualifier match Put other around axecpt messi otamendi and Acuna rest were thier first match for sa qualifier

    People so easy to forget exactly 4 years ago
    Ecuador humble argentina in thier yard
    Those were present at that time
    S. Romero
    N. Otamendi
    E. Garay
    Mas
    F roncaglia
    Mascherano
    Biglia
    Pastore
    Di maria
    Correa
    Aguaro
    Came on as sub
    Tevez
    Lavezzi
    Unused sub
    Zabalata
    Lamela
    Dybala
    Demichelis
    Gatain

  88. My summary of the game:

    The game started with argentina showing a 4222/4231 type of hybrid where depaul and parades were very deep in the pivot and never more than 10m separated from each other at the same vertical depth. It seems scaloni instruction was to make sure neither midfielder was to be left alone and depaul did not have much freedom to drive forward with the ball in the beginning. acuna and ocampos hugged the sideline extremely wide resulting in argentina conceding a lot of space between the forward lautaro and the deep line of the double pivots. messi was the only dropping in the space here but there was not much room as he was trapped in a triangle between alan franco, caicedo and gruezo.

    In search for room messi played way more on the right side than central. This allowed more triangles between ocampos, montiel, messi and showed some penetration on the field. however on the other side acuna was isolated. tagliafico and marcos were not able to construct any overlaps as both seemed unwilling to attack the half space and any progress on that flank was rare in the first 45.

    Out of possession argentina showed very effective 424 pressing shape. the front four was committed in keeping pressure on ecuador when ball was in their half. this press game resulted in ecuador not being able to settle comfortably and easily turning possession to argentina many times on failed long balls out to the sidelines enabling argentina to add up the possession percentage. the press resulted in lautaro causing an error at the center line and transition allowing messi to drive and suck in defenders ultimately causing a panic tackle on ocampos with the final through ball and a penalty.

    At the break scaloni had clearly instructed the team to attack the left more and there was an increased effort to build from that side too. The clearest opportunity came after acuna advanced the ball early in the half, resulting a nice paredes cross that lautaro flicked into ocampos feet for the game’s only shot at goal from open play.

    • However in the second half ecuador added their own 424 press in an effort to chase the game back. Armani’s extreme inaccuracy in long distribution, compounded by messi, lautaro and ocampos inability to win the ball in the air consistently resulted in ecuador frequently picking up possession and turning the ball over from us. Paredes and depaul used their intelligence in drawing a lot of fouls in this period in an effort to nullify the press and generate free kicks to win the ball.

      At the half alfaro also made a 45 minutes sub and used youngster rightback angelo preciado to chase long balls down their right (our left) with valencia. Basically sacrificing shape on specific occasions by throwing a defender forward in trying to catch out acuna and tagliafico but the flank held firm. As the press grew tired, ecuador were able to find the longer ball options easier and had one or two chances for the wingers to chase but armani showed good coverage to not cause a real worry.
      Scaloni introduced his first change with 25 minutes to go with acuna’s injury and choosing to go with salvio and swapping his flank with ocampos. This change worked well on the left with ocampos now doing an excellent job keeping track of preciado’s runs while nico kept the winger in check. At the same time with acuna off, tagliafico seemed to find more confidence and understanding with ocampos and the ball advanced on the left more comfortably now.

      This led to my favorite sequence of play in the 73rd minute where after some 24 odd quick passes the lines were broken and ocampos was able to lay off the ball for a messi shot that unfortunately was blocked. In this one sequence ocampos showed the ability to take up space from the left that acuna unfortunately was not able to the whole time due to his skill set. Anyone with a DVR please rewatch the half a minute sequence of play.

      At the 75th a tiring lautaro was withdrawn for alario to close out the game. Ocampos and depaul started to look tired at this point adding some final excitement La Tricolor efforts but the defense held and scaloni added his final subs swapping dominguez in for ocampos strengthen the middle and also foyth in place of montiel.

      • Fantastic write up. Ive said it million times, but i really look forward to your analysis. I always learn something new, you tend to catch things that most of us miss. Either a game changing play, off-ball movement, or tactic call out. Keep it up! 🙂

  89. How did the team play? I mentioned in an earlier thread that the first eleven lacked creative players but unfortunately one of Argentina’s creative players, Papu Gomez wasn’t utilised – sad. Did Acuna play well? I have my reservations about him. On a brighter note I like Eduardo Salvio. Did he perform well? I didn’t watch the match.

  90. This is a mediocre, average Argentina team.. Arguably the worst I have seen to this day since the late 1990’s. With the exception of Messi (and you can add Aguero and Di Maria) this Argentina team is at the level of Ecuador, Peru and Paraguay ( and on their day these teams would best the current Argentina national team).. There is nothing special about the modern Argentina national team. The fact that big clubs are not even interested in Argie players says a lot about the quality of players being developed. How many Argentina CB’s and Mids in the current generation are playing in the UCL knockout stages?

    Tactically Ecuador was better and moved the ball more efficiently than this current Argentina team. Ecuador should be the team struggling not Argentina given the team football resources. Ecuador is rebuilding and had to deal with a global pandemic like every other nation so there is no excuse for this kind of lackluster performance on the part of Argentina..Scaloni is not a good coach, stop making excuse for this guy, and given that he had more time with the team than both Bauza and Sampaoli, the setup should have been far ahead of teams like Ecuador. There has been no improvement since the 2019 Copa America with this Argentina national team.

    Some folks seem to rate Scaloni highly because he is good at calling up average players from low level clubs. You can’t punish players because of their age or familiarity in past Argentina national team setup. Perfect examples, Di Maria and Lamela are playing well especially the former so why exclude them? If age and familiarity was a problem with Uruguay Diego Goodin, Suarez and Cavani would not be selected.. In South American qualifiers you need all the help you can get as a team be it young or experience players. Argentina are in no position currently to dismiss players like Di Maria, Lamela and even Banega. In South America all teams use the best informed and experienced players at their disposal during World Cup qualifiers. When you have qualify for the world cup this is when you let players like Banega, Di Maria, Aguero etc. know that their time is up with the national team, then thank them for everything instead of disrespecting two of the best Argentinean players (Di Maria and Banega) you have had on the European stage in a long while.

    The star and hype of this Argentina midfield is a guy from Udinese. DePaul wouldn’t even make the current Italian national team if he was Italian. Big mistake to turn your backs on players who gave so much to their team in the past.. Given that most of these new Argentina players are with relegated/bottom of the table club across Europe then it would be fitting for them to be in the same team with class players like Di Maria and Banega, then you’ll be able to improve better as a player compare to the team mates they’re playing with in the Elche or Granada of this world.

    With such a horrible display against Ecuador, a non existent midfield and wingbacks who cannot put a sequence of good effective passes together and dominate the opponent on your home turf, only points to one outcome in La Paz, a humiliated defeat to Bolivia. The current Argentina players are not good enough to get any away points in these qualifiers. If the Argentina vs Ecuador game was in Quito it would have been a 3-4 goal win for Ecuador. This team will not win any away game in its current state which will make qualifying for the world cup difficult. Argentina need to go through what Holland went through by failing to qualify for the word cup. Every Argentina footballer who crawls or creep as long as you give them a soccer ball is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Come on man, stop encouraging mediocrity as success.

    • Didn’t ecuador beat Argentina exactly
      4 years ago in buenos aires with players You have mentioned
      And better coach tata according to you.

      • He was always the one in the forum making unpopular and crybaby comments. Always trying to be different from the herd. Nothing unexpected. But good to see old members nonetheless.

    • Completely agreed to your point mate. I don’t know why a section of this forum keeps glorifying mediocrity.
      If there was immense talent among the youths, then few of them would definitely have been hired by Real Madrid, Barcelona ,or any top tier starting 11 players.
      Some troll will come and compare our midfield to Brazil’s and will assert no need to fancy big clubs in between. But, aren’t there a single young Argentine who is a guaranteed starter for a tier 1 club.
      Brazil got Vini,Rodrygo,Jesus and we only have Lautaro.

      Even though Brazillians are not to the level as they were once, but their midfield and defense is a lap ahead of us.
      We have absolutely zero players who are future Megastar prospects and introspection should be executed among AFA, that’s how we can improve.

    • Oye cafetero, que haces aqui?

      I guess if only we had Fernando Tissone in his prime, that would have solved all of our problems.

      Or let’s call Higuain next time, he will surely improve this team

  91. OMG

    how bad did we miss Lo Celso… He is our main man in midfield…

    Good about this match:

    No Goal conceded, Paredes was decent Ocampos was good and Messi was Messi and of course 3 Points

    Bad about this match:

    Acuña is not NT material, why leave Dybala and Papu on the bench what’s wrong with Scaloni and we need better options for RB

  92. Seeing the state of Argentina NT midfield maybe Scaloni and even AFA needs to try their level best to convince Giovani reyna to play for Argentina NT. I understand it might be very hard to convince him but maybe the chance of playing with Messi and USMNT not having much chances of winning WC compared to Argentina NT ( No disrespect to USMNT though) could do the trick if hopefully AFA and Scaloni can formally approach Giovanni Reyna to play for Argentina NT.

  93. only messi was fantaist on the filed. rest are realy below the standard..in the 91th minute how the de paul destroyed the chances,messi was waiting to pass….many times team lost the ball…pass accuracy was very very poor..messi gave the many passes in barcelona style, but player didtnt avail of opportunity

  94. Foyth and Sarvia are locked as Right Back now. Montiel makes us vulnerable and unnecessary pressure on midfield player especially on De Paul. But Argentina needs at least 3 players on their disposal for Right Back so search should be on.

    • Its too early to say about gonzalo montiel but there are other choices too like cristian romero can also play as RB, and nahuel molina(udinese fc) might also become a decent RB option.

    • Currently Montiel is not up to the standard.
      As I said before, still no Idea why this big football country doesn’t have a RB who can play in Europe.

      I am waiting for Marcelos Herrera and Luciano Vera to progress as soon as possible.

  95. Very good start& win by Argentina and Scaloni. Arg need points .Scaloni is different from arg’s earlier coaches. He always using his players brilliantly. major change in this team is the tactics developed by Scaloni . This team playing more on thr half. They always covering thr back more than attacking…past Arg teams concentrated more in attacking. Thtis a suicidal tactics. A professional team must steady thr back & middle.

  97. I would so want buendia to be tried at right back. He is a hard working RW as well as plays b2b at times.

    So many examples of RW turned into excellent RB even at latter stages of their career…. Jesus Navas. Doherty etc.
    We have 2 more years we can try.

    • i really like that idea. some out of the box approach is worth an experiment as our RB pool anyway is very limited & no U17 talent is expected to burst into NT scene in next 2years . Unless that is experimented – we never know what is outcome. Lets say few WCQ games where we are comfortably leading or maybe a friendly – try it out for 2nd half few times & then come to a conclusion.

  98. We turned into a mediocre team. Way below par performance from many players. To have Gomez and Dybala on the bench and have lesser players on the pitch. Shame on the coach. If we play the same team in La Paz, we”re in for a loss.

  99. Relax guys . Most important thing is that we have won the game. Now wait for second game against Bolivia. Which was gone is gone. Now prepare for next hurdle.

    • Most of our players flew from Europe 4-5 days ago. Practiced a couple of times. Many were playing in their first CONMEBOL qualifier and with new mates. The idea is to develop a cohesive team by the WC. Using players who will possibly be past their prime and not “hungry” doesn’t help. Scaloni is taking his time and isn’t scared by what “we” think. Great! This is not going to be a fun qualifier, Covid-19, short time between games, long flights, no fans in stadiums(maybe a good thing?). Scaloni has to have players with fresh legs and lungs for Bolivia(ask Maradona:)). Argentina won. We got 3 points. This is the begining of a long road in a short time, we need to qualify, stay healthy and positive. All of you who are negative, take a big step back and look at the bigger picture. Messi, I believe, is forcing those around him to solve the problem,without dumping the ball to him every time they panic. Vamos Argentina, Carajo!

  100. Hopefully against Boilivia 4-3-1-2 formation is used.
    Emiliano Martinez/Andrada
    Foyth/Montiel-Quarta- Medina- Tagliafico/Acuna
    Guido-Palacios-Dominguez/De Paul
    Alejandro Gomez
    Alario – Lautaro Martinez/Gio Simeone
    But Scaloni knows better than all of us and whichever formation he will choose will be better for the team and glad for the win remember that in 2018 WC qualification first match that Ecuador NT defeated Argentina NT by 2-0 that time under the command of Martino compared to that this result was fine but hopefully midfield and attack improves in the future matches.

  101. Our midfield takes too long to release the ball always holds the ball unnecessarily.
    They are obsessed with backpassing even there is space between the lines and situations where forward pass can create a danger.
    I don’t know what Scaloni is doing in training sessions. And now don’t complain about lack of time he is the coach for more than 2 years and with NT for more than 3 years.

      • Hey man….I acknowledge Raj is pretty obsessed with Icardi, but comeon, He is way way better than Alario.
        The priority should be winning the matches with a roaring sound rather than to safeguard players when they are not the one’s to be playing for a World cup winning side.

    • I agree about Salvio (not that he’s a farmer but that he shouldn’t play), but alario? He is a decent striker and we don’t have Agüero or Dybala anyway. I guess his fifa card is too low for your pea brain.

      • Icardi is the best striker in the world after Lewandowski and farmer Alario who is the bench warmer at B grade club in Bundesliga selected ahead of World Class icardi won’t be the excuse not having Aguero/Dybala. I hope simeone play next match.

        • Icardi is not needed by the way Leverkusen always plays in Champion league or in Europa league. Icardi is second choice in PSG. He has done nothing for PSG for more than a year,not even substitute in CL final or in semifinal

        • Justify with FACTS and LOGIC that Icardi is the best after Lewandowski. Alario’s status in Bayer Leverkusen can not be used to increase how good Icardi is. Icardi’s style of play embodies the way we played today. To have him and bringing him on would have been as useless, damaging, and brainless as Italy bringing on De Rossi in their 2018 qualifiers.

          • Icardi is predator in front of goals, as clinical as Lewandowski. Icardi is 5-6 year younger than Lewandowski it’s a matter of time Icardi hailed as the best striker like Lewandowski.

          • His only good attribute. Players that are well rounded are better. It would be easier to put up a case for best finisher after Lewandowski. Not best striker.

          • That predator does not score 10 goals in whole season even in Ligue 1.His next destination is MLS in 2 or 3 year.

        • yes i agree with you..
          i am not satisfied today match.
          our player always loosing ball, many times they lost possions.
          even passing accuracy is very poor.
          coach should focus on passess.

  103. to all the pundits….this team has never played together for a long time….there was no shots on goal by Ecuador. montiel should stay with this team in the starting 11.

    • Montel isn’t level to play for Argentina, it’s sad to see lack of depth in RB. I would take Foyth ahead of montiel, hoping Molina shines for Udinese and cement Argentina RB position.

  104. Not pleasing to watch the match but win and 3 points more important and good start for the campaign. We know how difficult Combebol WCQ is, so collecting more and more points in the first half of the qualifier should matter so that team prepared well in later part of the tournament

  105. (I copy and pasted this here because the second I posted this on a previous post this post was added, so people could see it)
    SofaScore Ratings and commentary
    Armani – 7.0 – He was not tested a lot but grabbed the ball out of the air at the right moments. He was not ready in Ecuador’s late first half chance and that could have easily been a goal.
    Montiel – 6.7 – Not a great performance. Many of his passes went out for a throw in and had bad touches. Defensively okay.
    Lucas Martinez Quarta – 6.8 – Had some decent defensive moments and not afraid to take a long pass. Nothing very special though.
    Nicolas Otamendi – 7.1 – Much better than I expected given his Benfica performance.
    Tagliafico – 6.8 – Decent game but nothing special.
    De Paul – 7.0 – Good work rate but no creativity. I question the rating of 7.0.
    Paredes – 6.6 – Got a yellow card. At times he played very deep in the backline and would look like a center back only to get forward when in possession. Had a couple of decent passes but as always nothing special from him.
    Acuna – 6.6 – Based on this performance I definitely don’t want him. No creativity and got injured. I think he is better as a back up option but I guess that’s what he’s doing given Lo Celso.
    Lionel Messi – 7.6 – Highest rating in the team and as we know scored the penalty. Every time he had the ball I thought something special would happen. Although often his good movement would lead to the ball being taken from him, a good shot would be blocked, and a good pass would lead to nothing from the other player.
    Ocampos – 6.6 – He won the penalty, which was good. Apart from that he saw a lot of the ball but it never lead to anything. Poor crosses, passes, touches, and no creativity. Not a good game. Also had a shot which should have been a goal.
    Lautaro Martinez – 6.9 – Another poor and inconsistent performance. Every time he saw the ball (which was not a lot) and there was a good opportunity it didn’t lead to anything. Poor dribbling. Average movement. I expected better.
    Subs:
    Foyth – 6.7 – Came on late but played quite well. My impression that is left is that of a great slide in which he dispossessed an Ecuadorian. Still not enough minutes to say much.
    Dominguez – 6.5 – Came on late with Foyth and played alright, nothing memorable.
    Salvio – 6.6 – I did not want to see him come on. No creativity or good on ball movement.
    Alario – 6.7 – We all remember his run in the last minutes when he passed to Messi who passed it to De Paul who missed his shot. In fact that is the only thing I remember of him. Nothing poor but nothing impressive.

    We got the three points which is all I’m happy about. Apart from that it was a slow and boring game. Too defensive of a strategy against a team who only boasts players that won the Sudamericana. We kept the ball in the same place nearly the whole game, in Ecuador’s half but on the right. Messi and Ocampos would positionally clash a lot. I would have loved to see Papu come on who could have changed the dynamic of the game with creativity. Dominguez and Foyth were defensive substitutions. The referee allowed a lot of heavy tackles against us which screams nothing more than “South American Referee”. I am content with our defense but our midfield was awful. It also felt as if our team had no chemistry at times. I do think it can improve over the next few games. It’s been almost a year of not playing. And we also had many injuries which made this harder. I expected much more but maybe too much based on the factors I just mentioned. Maybe Scaloni wanted us to conserve some energy for La Paz? Anyway not a memorable game but we got the three points which is what matters.

      • To give you some perspective, 4 is the score Adrian received after the Liverpool loss. They were poor but not disastrous enough to get that score. Also teams that win usually have a higher overall score. In my opinion a little less than what he received is fine but not that low.

  106. Hopefully in bolivia match Messi shall not play because Argentina NT needs to learn how to face tough matches without Messi and in bolivia match hopefully either emiliano martinez or andrada starts instead of armani and otamendi hopefully is in bench not in starting 11 and against Bolivia energetic players will be needed so instead of otamendi,Medina can be used in his place and in midfield palacios or dominiguez need to be used instead of Paredes.

  107. Salvio should never play for Argentina, how the hell he came in over Gomez. Is there any pressure from Boca juniors and river plate to play their players? Armani looks like an old man keeping. When we are going to play attacking football. everyone seems to contend with 1 goal.
    This game is after a long time, but there are unacceptable mistakes.
    1. Lot of back passes
    2. Easily going to ground
    3. Montiel, Salvio should never play, especially Salvio.
    4. Otamendi should be a sub.
    5. Emi should start.
    Quarta was a big positive.

  108. Times come to bring our young blood

    Emilano Martinez.

    Foyth….Lucas Martinez…sensi…..tagliafico

    Gio lo celso……Leo parades……. Exequiel palacios

    Messi

    Thiago almada/ Nicolas gonzalez/ barco………………dybala/ lautaro martinez

    Plz AFA & Scolani
    We love attack
    Dribbling passing
    That’s the tradition of Argentina football team…
    So plz plz…
    Stop this disgusting football show….
    Play some attacking football & select some good player
    Salvio+ Armani+ monitel+ alario
    This type player never ever select
    They r not ready for even Malta football team
    Where Argentina is thousand far better team

  110. I am not worried on the game . Importantly we won & also had an early goal. There are lot of scenarios we can keep debating , but team played their first match after like an year & had 2 days of sync up. So rustiness was expected. Let Montiel play 3-4 games before any verdict is passed.
    My only disappointment is Scaloni budging to local pressures & not playing Emi Martinez. For an outside neutral fan , Emi not in starting 11 is a joke. He is our best bet & why delay his integration to team . Or are we waiting for a high pressure Brazil match & then throw him in. Ecuador home game was a perfect easy starting point. Also the fact that among keepers , he has most playing time since March lockdown. Infact Lapaz could have been one of the local GKs & andrada looks better than Armani.
    One great point is the 5 substitutes & this is something which will help us in LaPaz.

    • We can not give 3 or 4 games to Montiel, if we lose those games then it is going to be tight race for Argentina like 2018 qualifier. Foyth is best for now. De Paul has to cover for Montiel that is why he did not bring anything offensively.

    • Agree totally. He can still be the best Super Sub for us. Can come in second half in almost every game and strengthen our attack. He can give headache to any defence in the World. My only problem is him being part of the full system, him starting from the first minutes. Other than that he’s a must. Keeping him out of squad is plain stupidity.

    • He should have been called up, and be on the bench as a sub when things don’t work out well. 2 years ago I talked about transition, not building a new team from scratch.
      Anyway, we got the 3 points and that matters more than the display for the first match, let us wait and see if we can go up as time passes by, because we can not be worse than this.

  113. How Otamendi is brilliant? He was very shaky. He has no brain. Thats the reason he got yellow card. He tackles too much he dont know how to play calm. He is always on the floor. Even he cant make clearance without lying on the ground.

    • Otamendi was best there he earned good yellow card otherwise it was going to be a genuine threat on the goal. Do not hate player if he is performing better. He is our GENERAL

        • Yes Otamendi was rusty & that was a mispass by him that led to situation. Even first half last minute set piece he was on point to clear it & missed. But i think its ok considering he has not played for ages. Either he or Pezzella is needed while the youngsters grow into team . A few games at Benfica – General will get back into gear . I am not worried about the last minute blooper in the benfica match.

          • Otamendi should not be a starter for the world cup, we should integrate youngsters soon into the team. The problem is wrong players keep on playing.
            Armani – looks like an old guy keeping.
            MOntiel and salvio- should never play for the team.
            I wonder why European teams are not going for Montiel, he will never move there if he plays like this.

          • Lapaz is a good chance to try Medina over Otamendi. But seeing how he handled Armani over Emi , i have my doubts. Scaloni maybe for now just focused on getting the 6 points . Again Salvio i think is only there keeping Lapaz in mind. Post that he will be out of contention. Montiel – i am prepared to wait. I have seen some good games of him for River & i think he will improve while i agree today he had bad moments.

    • He may not be one of the best players in the world any more. But he’s the best we got right now. It’s the simple fact. He was decent-good today.

  115. A very physical game as expected but 90% of our starters and subs had a dull game.

    Messi brightest star on the field as usual.

    Gve this man a good team, he will bring home two World Cups before he hangs up his boots!

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