Alejo Sarco scored twice for the Argentina U20 national team in their 3-1 win against Cuba at the U20 World Cup.
Sarco had both goals for Diego Placente’s team in their 2-1 win at their first match in Chile. Three minutes into the match, Santino Andino would play a pass to Maher Carrizo on the wing and Carrizo would dribble inside the penalty area, play a low cross in to Alejo Sarco and Sarco would score from close range to give Argentina the 1-0 lead.
With Argentina leading 1-0, Santiago Fernández would go for the ball inside the penalty area and would foul Raballo of Cuba. The referee would give Santiago Fernández a red card and award Cuba a penalty kick.
Diego Placente would use a green card, to challenge VAR to reverse the decision. Santiago Fernández would get the red card but no penalty kick was given.
Placente would substitute Teo Pagano in for Santino Andino. At 1-0 for Argentina, Dylan Gorosito would play a cross into the penalty area and Sarco would head the ball into the back of the goal to make it 2-0 for Argentina.
Minutes later, Cuba would get a goal off a corner kick.
Ian Subiabre, Mateo Silvetti and Tobías Andrada would be substituted into the match for Maher Carrizo, Alejo Sarco and Valentino Acuña. Subiabre would score for Argentina.
Also in Argentina’s group are Italy and Australia, both teams having played on Sunday and Italy winning 1-0 to go second place in the group behind Argentina who are first.
Argentina play Australia on Wednesday.
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Los pibes played really well albeit against a much weaker opposition and kudos to Placente for structuring the team in a way where the absence of Diablito was hardly felt, but again….it was against a much weaker opposition and much tougher games are yet to come.
Seeing Montoro as a ’10’ and Acuna as a ‘5’ was quite surprising but they handled it well but it was against -and I will keep saying this- a weaker opposition so no conclusions can be formed just yet.
Subiabre showed his class again when he came on and Sarco was impressive from the get go. I personally never saw this kid play (or if I have I don’t remember) but so many of you swore by him when he went to Leverkusen and now I’ll keep an eye out for him.
All in all a good start and as I said in a previous post my eye isn’t on any of the pibes but rather Placente himself and if he’s able to take this team far without Diablito then I’d say there is a big case for him replacing Scaloni in 2026 when the latter will likely retire from the NT.
Main problem is defense and goalkeeping. In south America U-20 tournament despite being the one of the best team argentina struggle against physically strong team Ecuador, Colombia and Paraguay. Placente needed to install tall defender with strong physics for the U-20 world cup but he failed to do so. For me it will be a big problem for argentina in upcoming matches in this tournament.