Argentine Champions League preview: Lautaro Martínez, Ángel Correa

By
Roy Nemer
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56

The Champions League continues on Wednesday and it’s the same games as last Tuesday.

Lautaro Martínez and Joaquín Correa play FC Barcelona and a win for Inter would have them all but qualified for the next round. Correa has a muscle injury which he sustained last week against Barcelona.

Atletico Madrid are presently in last place in their group. Ángel Correa scored two goals in Atletico Madrid’s last game and could start for Diego Simeone’s team.

Correa, Rodrigo De Paul and Nahuel Molina will need the points. They are tied on three points with FC Porto and Bayer Leverkusen.

Gio Simeone scored for Napoli last week against Ajax, who also have Lucas Ocampos. He is on two goals in the Champions League as Napoli lead their group.

Exequiel Palacios is injured and set to miss Bayer Leverkusen’s game vs. FC Porto. Cristian Cuti Romero and Tottenham Hotspur play Eintracht Frankfurt and Lucas Alario.

Leonardo Balerdi scored for Olympique Marseille last week against Sporting. He has been in great form for Marseille.

Here are the games involving Argentine players:

Napoli (Gio Simeone) vs. Ajax (Lucas Ocampos)

Atletico Madrid (Rodrigo De Paul, Ángel Correa and Nahuel Molina) vs. Club Brugge.

FC Barcelona vs. Inter (Lautaro Martínez and Joaquín Correa)

Tottenham Hotspur (Cristian Cuti Romero) vs. Eintracht Frankfurt (Lucas Alario)

Sporting vs. Olympique Marseille (Leonardo Balerdi)

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56 Comments

  1. Inter should have won this match, but Dumfries and Asllani cost them 2 points. Lautaro stepped up when it mattered most. Another thing, Onana is a terrible keeper, whereas Ter Stegen brilliant saves kept Barcelona hopes alive.

  2. and some of the pundits were saying Barca shouldn’t bring back Messi as it will be a step back!!! They have a great young team and they should focus on building a team!!! Now they will have to focus on league.. Europa league 🤣🤣🤣🤣

  3. Great game by Lautaro, 1 goal and 1 assist. By far Inter’s best player, he changed the game twice, first with his goal gave the lead to inter, then with his assist he gave them the lead again and he almost did it thrice as he stole the ball ran towards the opposition defence and created one more great pass puting Inter’s player one on one with Ter Stegen for the winner but the Inter player missed it.

  7. I’m kind of replying to many people here who’ve brought this up: I do think the injury argument and precedent from 2014 is valid. @Dadir10, I do agree with your arguments about the 2014 WC final, it’s kind of funny that both sides of this Dybala discussion come out of a bad memory from that same final (in my case the Palacio miss, in your case the injuries both Aguero and Gago were dealing with). Yes, it can be bad to call up players wrestling with injuries and fitness, BUT there is a huge distinction that has to be made between 2014 and 2022. In 2014 the squad size was 23. This year it will be 26, with FIFA’s purpose being specifically to mitigate the effects of the straining schedule on players’ fitness. A larger squad size (that in this case is an extra forward) could mitigate the effects of Dybala’s potentially dodgy fitness, while in 2014 using him would have had a greater impact. In 2014 with a 26 man squad we would have had the chances of using maybe Tevez or Milito (to throw out names) as an additional forward, which for BOTH concerns we’ve mentioned would have had an impact that day. Using Dybala in a 26 squad in this context is a lower risk than usual and high reward scenario, might as well utilize it for someone of his caliber. I’m not saying what Scaloni should or should not do but this is how I interpret it.

      • Scaloni knows about the finishing issues of Nico Gonzalez and j Correa now. and both of them have not played them much this season. so if Dybala’s recovery happens in around 5 weeks. then he is in.

        • They have finishing issue bt nico Gonzalez is a work horse. Dybala can’t play left wing.he is a sub of either dimaria or messi. Nico Gonzalez works tirelessly in defense dybala doesn’t help in defense. So no point of wasting a place for a guy who is not even a starter in scaloni’s team. I feel angel correa decent in scoring also good in linkup play and also decent pace and helps in defensive duties he should be the right wing sub of dimaria he deserves it

  9. according to goal “dybala could return for the Rome derby in the final game before the World Cup but, worst case scenario, he could miss out on a place in Argentina’s World Cup squad with their first game at the tournament taking place on Tuesday, November 22.”

  10. Hopefully Dybala is healed as soon after the 35 player list comes out as possible. I think Scaloni will try to wait it out as much as possible, which is what reports indicate.

    This might be a dumb question, but in theory could a player be called up even if they don’t make it to the first couple of games but are fit right after that? What is the bench size limit for the WC? Will there have to be players left out of games? I know in tournaments there are always a couple of players that make the first team squad but aren’t called up to the bench for some games. Could Dybala technically be one of those players and then be called up to the games when he finally is fit?

    • If dybala is not fit for first 2 games thn he will be no use to Argentina in knockouts as well. Its not magic that u gets fit and automatically u performed like crazy. He will be thn rusty and would offer nothing

      • I’m not asking for the opinion on whether that would be the right choice or not, I’m asking in theory would that be possible to do. I know that there are arguments for and against it.

        • Obviously you can ur 26 player and in match day u can pick the alotted players. Even if someone doesn’t feature in even bench he can surely come bt i don’t think there is backup allowed from that 26 player if not someone injured badly during the tournament thn scaloni ask for a backup not if he already sustaining an injury

          • Yep, I wasn’t entirely sure if there are regulations about bringing injured players or not but I just found out through research that bench sizes have been increased to 15 this WC so nobody will be left out of the matchday squad

  12. The reports comes out:

    Dybala out for 40 days
    Di Maria out for 2-3 weeks

    So Dybala is pretty much out, although Scaloni will still call him to the 35 players list

    Di Maria is in for sure.

  13. Depending Lautaro more also going to be a serious suicidal approach. Lautaro showing inconsistency in several games..need a very good experienced sub for him in WC atleast.

    • Nothing new. Scoring duty will be as usual on the messi’s back others will cheap in with 1-2 goals don’t expect to score like for crazy from them.

    • If using the second highest goalscorer in the Scaloni era is suicidal, I can’t imagine how terrible our other forwards must be. Even if he’s bad he’s the best we have, and he’s not bad. All strikers have dry runs and he had a pretty bad run in the beginning of the Copa America but then became the joint second highest goal scorer. He’s also had dry runs at Inter and then began to score a lot right after, so this isn’t unusual. He’s usually performed very well for us and even if he enters the WC in a dry run I’m sure he will have time to get into form in the knockouts like he did in the Copa.

      Now I do see the concern about a Lautaro sub, which is why a lot of our hopes are resting on a quick Dybala recovery. If all of Messi, Dybala, Lautaro, and Di Maria are fit then we have a very good source of goals (actually one of the best in the world) and great finishers from the starting lineup and in Dybala’s case from the bench. Add Alvarez, Angel Correa, or our some of our midfielders like Papu that can chip in. We don’t need to necessarily score many goals to win the WC just like we didn’t need it in the Copa America, taking it game by game and being tough to beat is more important. The first four I mentioned are players that will score from limited opportunities and that is most crucial.

  15. Scaloni can’t depend more dmaria or dybla type unfit players. Bczi n a tournament team need 100% fit players.Probability of getting injured in the mid of WC tournmnt is above 60% when depending these kind of players. we faced tough situation in previous tournmnts bcz of injury of dmaria in crucial times…I think prime importance is given to Full fitness of players

  16. I wish Scaloni call simeone and tell him to play de paul in the playing 11, make this asshole simeone understand how important is R de paul for Argentina. What type of asshole is this simeone I still can’t get it…

    • 1. Simeone is not working in national team. AFA don t pay him. Atletico paying him. He working for them.
      2. Nobody can call one coach and say to him what to do. without consider all the reasons the only sure is if someone dare to do something like that the most normal respond of coach will be to say him “f..k off”.
      3.Simeone have offered to the national team as player so much and serve as captain in past too. the less he deserves is respect.
      you can say your opinion without use dirty words.
      i guess if i or anyone else use this kind of words to you then you will not receive it nice.
      So don t say to others words that you don t want to hear for yourself.

      • If Atletico are winning thn I won’t be using those words but they are loosing and he is not giving time to de paul to set up….so u jst keep ur mouth shut as I don’t mince my words about simeone whether he is an Argentine or not he is an asshole manager…

        • And yet people still don’t realize, right before the World Cup Simeone might actually be doing us a SERVICE by keeping him fresh and not overplaying him. Compare it to many European teams whose squads are being degrading by demanding play time in their clubs. I think the amount of minutes he’s getting is enough to stay fresh and not lose significant sharpness, especially since he will have time to get into things with a friendly against UAE and presumably easier match against Saudi Arabia. I’d rather have a player that can grow into a tournament than one that arrives playing 180 minutes a week with a heightened risk of injury and fatigue, add to that the WC itself being very demanding with gametime and dates.

          • @LM10ARG — Now with that I don’t entirely disagree, Angel’s case is a bit different and more unfortunate than De Paul’s. But I’m not sure if he’d be at the same level as Dybala or ADM with more minutes. I do wish he went to AC Milan when he was rumored to join. In this case Simeone is probably pressured into playing Griezmann and Felix. Remember Simeone has five forwards, Griezmann, Felix, Morata, Cunha, and Correa, it’s hard for each one of them to get enough minutes. Now that I list them out it’s kind of crazy how many forwards they gave him to work with.

      • With all due respect IDK why it bothers you so much. The only thing that might bother you is the profanity not the complaints. The stupid piece of shit never gave Angel the long runs he so truly deserves…..if he is buying arg players the idea and promise is to nurture them as much as possible…..even today angel was playing so well…..missed a few chances being offside and he had to replace him at the 60th minute.

        This guy is solely responsible that our favorite Angel has an avg career sofar………when at least he clearly has the skill to be another Dybala or so. Being an Argentine what does he do? Make sure that angel does not get long runs….when that is the least he could do……yeah i would not mind if he was given long runs but could not utilize but clearly he was not given one in the first place…….yeah he is a stupid piece of shit

        • i don t care the critics. Bothers me only the trash talk about somebody who offered big in Argentina and even was our captain too for a period of time.
          Now if people don t want to show respect then it is their problem.
          Just shows what kind of humans they are.

  18. Dybala should never be selected no matter how serious his injury is. If we select him then we haven’t learnt our 2014 WC lesson. Select any average, fit striker, but never take an injury prone player to a big tournament. Di Maria’s case is different. He is the luckiest player in the team and always performs very well in big matches, so he is a must player unlike Dybala.

      • Our bench will take a big loss if Dybala is not there. Di Maria and Messi are 34 and 35 so that increases the role Dybala might be able to assume. Depth is extremely important especially in a tournament like this one which is physically demanding with the schedule and where you ALSO need players that can score tight chances from the bench to make the difference.

        “Di Maria’s case is different. He is the luckiest player in the team and always performs very well in big matches, so he is a must player unlike Dybala.”

        – I agree, but a few years ago (not sure about you specifically) many people would not have said that because they didn’t believe in Di Maria or want him there. But then he did shut people up by using the quality he always visibly had to win us a Copa America by scoring from a difficult angle in a very important final. I consider Dybala to be a current version of what Di Maria was. We all can see he has that quality but people don’t think he’ll be able to show it, but I think he will. Not that he’s been given sufficient chances to prove yet if he’s a big game player or not.

    • in 2014,2018 or any world cup before that, one important lesson was average players are average even if they are super fit(remember palacio). you require an extra spark and clinical finishing from the round of 16 onwards, Dybala provides that. it is a 26-squad size so can easily take Dybala over an j Correa(whose finishing is pathetic.)

      • Agree, that’s the anecdote I always refer to. Palacio. Dybala can come on with 15-20 minutes and score a goal from a tight angle while there are a few players that I DO like (like Nico G) but I just don’t trust in their abilities to score even easy chances in a tight game. We need the useful players like Nico G to rotate and provide fresh/fit legs and energy but a luxury player like Dybala that gets a few minutes but can provide a spark can also win you a tournament.

      • @vineet & Olive, yes we need depth in every department, but you can’t count on a player like Dybala. So What is the benefit of him being in the squad when you’re sure as hell that he will get injured at some point in the tournament? In 2014 WC final, from the 86th minute until the end of the game it’s 11 vs 9 (Gago & Aguero were carrying injuries). I don’t want to see that again. Let the injured ones watch the WC from tv and give the fit and healthy players the chance of playing in the WC.

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