Argentina U23 national team coach Javier Mascherano has named his team for the pre-Olympics this month and there are no European based players.
Javier Mascherano has named his team of 23 players for the tournament which starts on January 20 in Venezuela. Mascherano will not be able to count on players based in Europe since they were not released by their clubs.
World Cup winner Thiago Almada has been called up and will wear the number 10 shirt. Valentin Barco who is set to sign with Brighton is also called up while Federico Redondo also makes it.
Mascherano’s team are in Group B with Uruguay, Chile, Paraguay and Peru. Argentina will play Paraguay first on Januay 21 and will play their second match on January 24 against Peru.
January 27 has two matches in the group but Argentina will not be playing. They will play on January 30 against Chile and their last match will be on February 2 against Uruguay. Here are the players Javier Mascherano has called up to the team:
Leandro Brey
Marco Di Cesare
Valentin Barco
Joaquin Garcia
Federico Redondo
Nicolas Valentini
Pablo Solari
Cristian Medina
Luciano Gondou
Thiago Almada
Claudio Echeverri
Fabricio Iacovich
Juan Sforza
Aaron Quiros
Gonzalo Lujan
Baltasar Rodriguez
Francisco Gonzalez
Santiago Castro
Julian Malatini
Juan Nardoni
Ezequiel Fernandez
Lucas Esquivel
Rocco Rios Novo
May want to mention Echeverri is in the squad besides on the list at the bottom of the post. This may be his coming out party to the rest of the world!
It’s Strong squad without including Europe based players. Mascherano will have no excuses this time around Please don’t fail us
I agree. We have a squad to actually win this Olympics qualifiers.
We have Paraguay Uruguay chile Peru.. top 2 team go to next round.. with this squad we should qualify for next round.Redondo, Fernandez, almada, Echeverri, medina solid midfielders.