Argentine Champions League preview: Lionel Messi, Lautaro Martínez, more

1. Great game from Sosa for River. Hope to see him play more. River take top spot.

2. Puks(pukar lamichhane) it’s me Roshan dai..I hope you are safe my brother in ezypt.. take care bro..
   As we both are die hard Argentina fans both Messi and riquelme are great players.. fantastic players..it’s due to dumb ass coach Diego who left out riquelme for no reason.. garbage 🗑️ selection of players.. leaving out world class players like riquelme,aimar, zanetti,cambiasso,lucho Gonzalez and taking Jonas gutearez Arial grace Mario bolatti ..I don’t know really what the hell Diego was thinking.. may be still at cocaine trip??

   • Hi dai….just saw ur message…..hop u r great…….yes u are absolutely right……..now days we don’t have such kind of players we used to produce……but i hope players like Lo Celso , Palacios, Ascasibar , lautaro , de paul matures and take there game to another level to win world cup with Messi

3. Acuna is a good LB for sure, his passing accuracy is over 90% in Sevilla, but midfield role is out of his comfort zone. Stop using him there.

   • Actually his best role is at midfield but as I said before he should be on the leftside of a 4 man midfield in a proper 4-4-2 and not a makeshift 4-4-2 that Scaloni used against Ecuador.

     • there are no secret : Connexion !

       —————–Lautaro
       —-Ocampos—-Messi—–Di Maria
       ———–Paredes—Lo Celso
       –Acuna—Quarta—Pezzella—Montiel
       —————-Martinez

       Ocampos et Acuna can work their chemistry with Sevilla all the year and Quarta with Pezzella in Fiorentina ! Chemistry is so importante

     • can you expand a bit on the makeshift vs proper 442?

       • Well a proper 4-4-2 is the one we saw in the most recent friendly against brazil:

         ———————-Lautaro——–Lio————————

         —-Celso——-De Paul————-Paredes———-ocampos

         Celso was misplaced by Scaloni (as usual) but he worked really hard and defended well while on the other side Ocampos played behind Messi and dragged the brazilian players away from him giving Lio the space necessary to cause Brazil’s backline alot of problems.
         In that game Argentina outplayed Brazil out of the park.

         Against Ecuador the line up on paper was as follows:

         ——————–Lautaro————–Messi—————–

         ———Acuna——–Paul————Paredes——-Ocampos—-

         Looks almost exactly the same (swap Acuna for Celso) but in actuality Ocampos played infront of Messi and the team often looked like this:

         ——————-Lautaro———–Ocampos—————–

         ————————–Messi———————————-

         ——-Acuna————-Paul—————Paredes————

         Ocampos’s connection with messi was excellent and he made several dangerous runs because of this including the run that got the penalty……however this left the midfield with 3 players who haven’t played together in over a year and one of those players (Acuna) isn’t at his best in a central role.
         Now I would imagine the plan was to have Ocampos drop back in case of an Ecaudorian counter where the shape would go from this:

         ——————-Lautaro———–Ocampos—————–
         —————————–Messi——————————
         ——-Acuna—————-Paul—————Paredes———

         to this:
         ——————–Lautaro————–Messi—————–
         ———Acuna——–Paul————Paredes——-Ocampos—-

         and it’s a neat idea but the problem is that Ocampos was more focused on making himself an outlet to which Lio can pass than a wide midfielder i.e. Lucas was way more focused on attack than defense and thus the team that hasn’t played together in a year look even more disjointed than originally thought.
         Acuna is at his best in a wide role, especially in the midfield because he’s dynamic and has a knack for crosses, but if you put him in a more central role, his dynamism tends to run him straight into the opposing team’s midfield and his crosses become less frequent.

         • gotcha. makes sense.

   • Player like Acuna is blessing for a team. He is hard working machine and flexible. Just needs to use in proper system i guess

   • Agree, Acuna’s best position is LB

4. Just watched havertz today and I must say these German players are technically superior to others only when put in a well drilled system. Without a proper system supported by other technical players, they fail mostly. If you look at madrid, kroos played better games and sustained as a world’s best midfielder because of Madrid’s perfect system with perfect players but if you had put him in teams like Atalanta, Roma or like Chelsea, he definitely would look bang average and I bet you won’t be surprised at all.

   These Chelsea team has qualities in their depth but they’re being managed by a sissy, who only picks on others for small or no reason.

5. Never saw such an improvement in Acuna’s passing until now. I think, since joining Sevilla, he has improved a lot in his technicality.

   Lucas Ocampos was average today. Apart from his runs and few crosses he struggled a lot in 1v1 situations.

   J. Correa with an assist and finally, Dybala’s first minutes this season.

   • Ocampos played well in 1st half he was the biggest trouble for Chelsea, the only way Chelsea players were able to stop him by withdrawing Fouls . But after 60 minutes he was a completely different player, he looked exhausted loosing the ball quite easily and always misplacing the passes.

6. Acunal played very well against Chelsea.

7. Who else hates our first kit and thinks that the blue is too light , seriously . Where are our bright blue colours like in 2010 World Cup jersey

   • I agree. Also the faded pattern is not as good. I would like it to resemble the flag in color.

   • i don t hate but sure is one of the worse first kits we ever had.
     i prefer we had continue longer time the 2018 kit than this one.
     anyway.

   • yep.. I’m with you guys. I love love the 2018 home and away jersey with black shorts. i actually both both.

     I’m not a fan of this one as the blue is barely visible. might as well be a white kit.

8. Good

9. Sevilla is playing nowhere near last season. They are struggling in the midfield after Banega left. Imo Banega left too early he could still have played at highest level for 2-3 more years.

   • Banega is still one the best in top leagues, hes simply too good for the Saudi league at the moment. Perhaps money, future, family are his priority now. At that age, he could injury himself and kiss the big contracts goodbye so maybe he’s cashing in while he can. Regardless, he is one of several players that makes my blood boil a bit when it comes to Scalonis picks.

     i’ve said it countless times but Paredes and Banega should have been competing this entire time. I do not like how Paredes has a guaranteed spot. There’s a healthy balance between role competition and improvement and with Paredes, i see neither. Ascacibar, Battaglia, Foyth :), Lisandro, whomever, are all distant fantasies, nowhere in sight. Guido is plan B.
     Don’t get me wrong, Paredes doing very well statistically and fits the system. I do like him, i but Im curious how other types like Ascacibar would do in that position and to the team.

10. Cannot we try Lisandro Martinez in Right back position??……he is flexible in many position as we see ……and he is small agile and really good with the ball more than foyth i feel……he can be our jordi alba for national team……what u guys think?

    • He’s too left-footed for that.

11. Barca will win but i see Messi leaving end of this season. Barca are treating Messi badly, they purchased two players who cost astronomical price that place in same position as Messi, Gerizemann and Coutinho. Now every one blaming Messi for their poor performances but no body pointing fingers at club or board who bought them. They also sold lot of players messi like suarez, vidal, arthur and then buy worse players. Messi leaving after 2014 would have been the best decision. However i hope barca go down the drain once messi leave. Barca are nasty political club who treat their legends badly and hide behind catalan propoganda. Eg Alves, Neymar, Messi, Eto, Villa, R9, Maradona(yes they did ) etc.

12. If u guys have to choose either one of Messi or Juan roman requelme in your team who would it be and why??

    • With all my respect to Riquelme he was not such a genius or a difference maker as Messi has been. The question is not Riquelme vs Messi, it’s in my opinion Maradona vs Messi.

      As a bonus, I would have all three of them in my all time best Argentina XI.

    • I would love to see messi play with riquelme and a solid defense at the back….messi came in to a super team that was aging at the back….if they had a solid defense with cambiasso mascherano and riquelme in the middle…with prime messi and di maria on the wings and aguero or tevez or higuain up front….Argentina wouldve been unstoppable

      • Higuain? Lord..

    • i will chose you,because every team need a stupid just like you

      • Who the fuck are u

        • Lmao Messi vs Riquelme 😂 as if they are on the same level

          • Roy hudson” messi probably is one of the great player ever but for me Requelme is my favourate player” …dont disrespect requelme guys he was one of greatest in his position m saying this being a due hard messi fan

13. We used to have a much bigger representation. This has gone down I believe. Also, two more stats will be interesting

    1. How many are actually NT candidates for next 2-4 years? Like who cares for Caballero
    2. How many are just making up numbers? If there is no injury or suspension, how many are automatic starters for their teams?

    Quick count, for 1 above, I see about 12-13 players.
    Quick count, for 2 above, I see about 15-17 players. A generous count.

    I am firm believer that our players need to play in top tournaments, fight against top opponents, face the toughest challenges. All these help the NT in various attributes.

    Anyhow, will sit in front of TV and root for our players to have top performances. Cheers!!!

14. If cristian romero plays well in the group stage especially against liverpool.. Theres 50% chance that he could head to liverpool as vandijk and matip are injured and joe gomez is shaky in defence….. They are looking at ben white currently but he is quite expensive….. Lets wait and see what happens…

15. Champions League team:

    Marchesin; Balerdi, Romero, Lisandro, Tagliafico; Paredes, Vazquez, Papu; Messi, Ocampos, Lautaro

    • Defense a little weak. But a good team, I must say 😉

16. Wow

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