Rumored Argentina XI vs. United Arab Emirates, Lionel Messi to start

By
Roy Nemer
-
71

The Argentina national team will play their last game before the 2022 World Cup against the United Arab Emirates and Lionel Messi is set to start.

Lionel Messi, Julián Álvarez, Emiliano Dibu Martínez, Nicolás Otamendi and Rodrigo De Paul are all expected to be in the starting eleven against the United Arab Emirates on Wednesday. And according to Olé, Gonzalo Montiel will be the right back and one of Nahuel Molina and Juan Foyth will be the left back. Here is the rumored starting line-up:

Dibu Martínez; Montiel, Otamendi, Lisandro Martínez, Nahuel Molina or Juan Foyth; De Paul, Paredes, Mac Allister; Messi; Lautaro Martínez or Ángel Di María and Julián Álvarez.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

71 Comments

  1. It is wonder how Scaloni gave chance to Alvarez not considering the experience and talent of Alario icardi or simioni type players. I believe Alvarez is too less experienced in world stage of football. Pray for him to play without tension..If lautaro is not in touch or any struggle happen it will be a big burden on him.

  2. Anyyone watching Saudi vs Croatia? They have Croatia on the backfoot. Saudi game will not be as easy as people are expecting. And guaranteed they will get support from referee as well.

    • Easy or not we will win 100%, Poland or Mexico are maybe going to fail against them. 2 offside goals from Croatia too, it will be only hard till first goal. 2:0 or 3:0 just like today match. No real quality attackers in these teams to score goals.

    • Yes I was watching Saudi vs Croatia. They look like and organized side, of they have played a lot friendlies recently but failed to register more than 1 goal all the matches. Our midfield and offense should be on their A game and have knives between their teeth if we want to put it to bed early. But I think we should win without complications.

  4. Mac Allister is of Irish and Scottish origin. There was always an Argentine of Anglo-Saxon descent in the World Champion Argentinian squads, in 1978 it was René Houseman, in 1986 it was José Luis Brown. I hope continue the tradition.

  5. Alexis Mac Allister on Lionel Messi defending him in the Argentina national team: “I remember everyone called me Colo, which is ginger in Argentina. I don’t like it much and he told the team mates that. He said “He doesn’t like to be called Colo, don’t call him that!”

  6. Best Possible Lineup for FIfa 2022
    __________________ Emi_____________

    Mont/Moli/Foy____Cuti___Ota__Acuna/Tag

    Depaul ________Paredes_______Nico

    Messi_____Toro______Dimaria/Papu

    Nico has all the necessary atttributes to fill Locelso place. Both Attacking and Defencive work rate are high i just need him to work on his pass more

  7. I have been watching some Argentine channels on youtube.. as not enough about Argentina is being discussed in the English and Indian channels.
    Something interesting that people are debating is that there are 4 players (except Messi) who are coming from a red hot club form and the names mentioned are: Enzo, Macallister, Dybala and of course Lisandro. Unfortunately none of them are our automatic starters. Now the question is how would the coaching staff integrate them in the team. Should they stay with the tried and tested ones or should they be a little experimental. This will be interesting to see.

    • Now there was a similar situation before Copa with Emi and Cuti. Both were integrated and we know the results. But then we had a couple of quality matches against Chile and Columbia to try them, not now. The last matches were all againat weak teams. What do you guys think?

      • Lisandro is already integrated and he will play lots of matches as i don’t think cuti will be injury free in this wc. McAllister should be a squad player not more than that. We must include enzo and maybe Dybala to some extent. Biggest challenge will be Dybala integration to the starting 11 that is not easy only option is if we play 4-2-3-1
        Emi
        Foyth romero ota tagli
        Depaul enzo
        Dybala messi nico/papu
        Lautaro/alvarez

        • 4-3-3 also works like we are arguing below lol.

          Emi
          Foyth – Romero – Lisandro – Tagliafico
          De Paul – Guido / Paredes / Mac Allister – Enzo
          Messi – Lautaro – Dybala

          At 60 minutes, replace Dybala with his similar fragile uncle Di Maria, or vice versa.

    • I absolutely agree. You can’t leave world class players on the bench and play mediocre ones just because you happened to play them before. That is just compounding a bad decision. Great players do not take long to build chemistry. It did not take more than a game or two for Enzo to adapt to Benfica, and Dybala to shine for Roma.

      This is the time to integrate them. This friendly, and the first two group games. Big mistake if this is not done, that will come to haunt us later on.

  8. Dybala, Di Maria, Messi – all three can play anywhere of left, right and center, as well as false 9, as they have done many many times in the past. They switch positions frequently to mess with markers and defenders. You create your formations based on the quality of players available to you, not the other way around.

    Argentina should play an attacking 4-2-3-1, with all 4 of Di Maria, Messi, Dybala and Lautaro, or a more conservative 4-3-3 where one of them is replaced with a midfielder. If Lautaro is at the center of 4-3-3, he will play as striker, if it is Messi or Dybala at the center they will play as false 9.

    No way in hell should Alvarez, at his current level (which is of course going to improve in the future), start ahead of any of them. In the world cup, a single magic through ball or curler from outside the box can mean the difference between progress or an early flight home. You want your best players on the pitch as much as possible.

  9. I hope McAllister plays today. Im sure again he will under perform thn mayb scaloni’s false image of McAllister will burst and Enzo will be preferred over him even palacios is better than him. McAllister has no creativity. A back and side pass merchant. Should only be a bench player. Our midfield will be attacking wise dead if McAllister starts.

  10. I hope MacAllister doesn’t start. If he start, he should perform horribly, otherwise many here will have sadness…and if he score or assists…they will have heart attack. Please Scaloni…don’t start him..
    Please MacAllister.. don’t perform..

    • Enzo will eventually start maybe 2nd round or quarter final onwards. Argentine coaches don’t take risk fast. He will start McAllister, papu or palacios there but in group games when they will struggle against Mexico or poland or denmark thn he will switch to his backup and will start enzo. Even in 1986 the team Argentina played in 1st match was quite different than what we saw in knockouts.

  12. Yes… chemistry is important. It is also extremely important to build chemistry between the best possible set of players. This and couple of group games is the very last time to make that happen before Argentina have to play against the monsters. Should have given Enzo Fernandez and Dybala the chance instead of inferior players.

  13. I really want to see McAllister giving a stellar performance tomorrow despite it is against UAE.

    Every time I see him preferred to start the match despite having low to average performance in the earlier games, it takes a psychological toll on me.

    If he displays a wonderful performance with Argentina shirt, I may start liking him and can spare myself from this psychological torture.

    The other players who ignited similar emotions was Roberto Pereira. Is there something in common between these two in terms of their style of play or type?

          • Both Dybala and alvarez is different players. Alvarez is more suited to replace lautaro a proper no. 9 Dybala will play either in messi’s role or in right wing

        • Dybala in left doesn’t make sense atall. Plus he can operate in midfield but his defensive contribution will be much lower. Plus he can’t be played as cam because messi plays cam for us either Dybala play as messi sub or he can play as right wing or lautaro sub 8f alvarez is not available

    • If dybala is playing in midfield means Paredes defensive weakness may get exposed badly. It is not even possible. If Molina playing as left wing back and Julian goes little bit wider to the left means macallister can show his typical range of play which he normally does and can concentrate more on his defensive skills.

  18. Will the “Curse of the Champios” hunt down France? I think this year it wont happen, finally the Curse will be broken.France is too strong even without Kante and Pogba, they can literally have 2 elevens with good players. Denmark may trouble them but still they r strong enough to break the Curse. But never know. There have been majour upsets for the Champions in the group stages Senegal beat France, Cameron beat Argentina, Korea beat Germany etc etc, i mean the minnow teams beating the Champions is really bad.Tunisia and Australia are minnows by the way.

    From our perspective just hope they dont comeout 2nd and we come out on top or vise versa,Its better to avoid France in early stages.

  19. McAllister starts means that Messi will play deep in midfield. The two remaining forwards will need to run a lot and find open space.

    I think Scaloni has two lineups in his mind:

    (1) Molina Otamendi Cuti Acuna/Paredes DePaul McAllister/Messi/Lautaro Alvarez
    (2) Montiel Otamendi Cuti Tagliafico/Paredes DePaul Papu DiMaria(Nico)/Messi Lautaro

    (1) is more balanced, while (2) will be more fluid in attacking.

    If we have three B2B midfielders, then Acuna and Molina can overlap more.
    If we we want Papu and DiMaria to have more 1-2 link passes with Messi, then Montiel and Tagliafico can contribute more on defense.

  22. It was a good decision to play against UAE. Get our flow going early. I just hope that our management had a good talk with UAE team management and told them to calm down during this game. UAE are one of the worst and most reckless teams I have seen play this year. I watched a few of their qualifiers unfortunately. They were very violent in their tackles. Hopefully we can iron something out in terms of player decisions, but UAE is much worse of a team than our first match against Saudi. So even if McAlister etc do well, it’s not a good testing ground. It’s only good to get our team starting the cup a week early.

    The irony is that we have mid field issues this time around. I’m not so sure about paredes fitness right now, but he is our main stay in the middle beside DePaul. Lo celsi was important for us. Papu- guido-mccslister-palacios will have to fit the role. The question is who. ????
    Again, Locelso injury is a big deal in my opinion. The closest we have to covering his position will be big Papu. He played in that position twice during qualification and/or maybe in copa. He scored also if I remember correctly. Plus I am biased when it comes to papu. He is from the same neighborhood as me, so it is special when he plays for the national team.

    My issue is that we will be relying heavily on McAlister which isn’t great.
    Also, I am shocked that some people here were supporting this kid from MLS to come play for the NT. This isn’t the Canada team where we are searching under locker room door mats to find back up players. This Atlanta united kid is in his prime and playing in MLS. I don’t have to explain any further on him. If we were to bring him then we should have started thinking about Lamela, and even Garnacho. Yes they are not that position, but they can adjust. And don’t tell me the MLS player did well with NT the one time he played. We were facing Jamaica or Barbados or something. Let’s talk asado tomorrow boys.

    • The UAE coach is an Argentine. I am confident he will get his boys to play it as a friendly & not get too physical. In hindsight agree Lamela would have been a good back up. But whenever he is called he is injured & surprisingly now he is in a patch with no injuries!!
      For a 26 man squad , Garnacho wld have been a sensible addition. If nothing an xtratime sub whose blistering pace vs tired defenders will create ripples. Also the debate of his NT status would have ended & it would have been a learning exposure assuming he is a key guy for 2026. The fact that Joaquin has not impressed means the risk was also very limited. But i guess Scaloni prioritizes team chemistry & bonding & didnt probably want integration issues. We should believe in this successful coach’s philosophy as he is seeing it the best.

      • Totally agree about Lamela even though he plays a bit more advanced in position, he’s very similar to GLC. I understand everyone’s reservations since he’s injury prone but he’s healthy right now. It’s really a damn shame he has been overlooked. We could def use a defensively tenacious aggressive midfielder that has flare and is very creative. I’d probably take iron lungs Lamela over Mac Allister and Garnacho over J Correa.

    • Yes, Lamela would have been good as i think Dominquez too for Lo Celso cover, also still missing A.Correa, but it is what is now with the 26 so in them we have trust as it is nice to hear Papu is from your neighbourhood as i would not mind to also come from the same neighbourhood, though obviouly i know nothing about your neighbourhood, so i can’t really comment as for respect reasons more about it etc…i just hope Papu will make your neighbourhood and whole Argentina happy as everyone else from 26 men Arg NT squad as offcourse i wish this very same for the whole wide world who truly supports LA SELECCION our beloved ALBICELESTE !

  23. Molina or Foyth as a LB and Mr error aka Montiel as a starting RB means Acuna is still struggling to find match fitness which is not good news. Half Fit wing/full back is like playing with one player less. Hopefully Tagliafico can stay fit and suspension free. However Molina if I am not mistaken has played as a LB few times? Local league followers should know better. Licha can also play LB if required. He can provide great crosses.With Dimaria in the right flank the opposition will not lauch a full fledged attack as Angel will keep their winger and fullback on their toes but Montiel will have to up his game. He made a lot of errors when playing for Sevilla ever since Sampaoli made him a starter.

  25. No negativity, praying for the health and safety of all players. Hope this is a calm and easy game for both teams.. no injuries please.
    Hope they put Enzo in with messi in the second half.. looking forward to see the chemistry they can provide.

Comments are closed.