Argentina national team coach Lionel Scaloni on team, Lionel Messi, Switzerland at World Cup

Very excited to watch ARG play yet another WC game and hopefully not the last.
This is the knock out stage and anything is possible because nothing is for certain, including the winner between Spain and France.
Great news about tonight’s game is that it’s going to be played at night in a stadium where they won their first game, no sun beaming down on them like we have other nations play under.

and damnit, AS ALWAYS, LET’S GO ARGENTINA ….LET’S GO

The biggest positive from the last match is the comeback. A result like that can do wonders for a team’s confidence, and confidence is exactly what Argentina needs right now!!

Colombia aren’t the tallest team at the World Cup, yet the Swiss still needed a penalty shootout to eliminate them. That shows just being tall isn’t enough.

Argentina’s biggest issues obviously have been the lack of width and the inability to control possession. As a result, opponents are enjoying far too much time on the ball. They are able to
string multiple passes together and run through our painfully slow midfield like a hot knife through butter, carrying the ball entire length of the pitch into our defensive third where they meet our defenders with poor positional awareness exposing our statue goalkeeper.

If Argentina can stop opponents from stringing multiple passes together and prevent those direct runs through midfield, we will control the game because I have no doubt we will create more chances than the swiss team.

If Scaloni sticks with the same formation, Messi will drift wider to the right often to provide more width and creativity. Tagliafico was far better in creating chances than Medina even with his limited offensive skills from left. Team management’s number one priority should be stopping teams from playing through our midfield. Scoring first is important too, of course, but controlling the game by keeping possession of the ball has to come first. Otherwise opponent’s will keep coming back like Cape Verde! In football, the team that makes fewer mistakes and forces the opposition into making more usually wins!

Hopefully, Scaloni gets the combination right somehow. Usually, opponents like Switzerland would be considered an easy quarterfinal opponent in the World Cup, but the way we’re playing makes it difficult to consider us favourites against anyone. As of now, France, Spain, and England are the favourites.

Is that good for us? In a way, yes, because we can play under the radar. It’s better to be seen as the underdog.

So Spain and France are going to muscle it out. One team that can suffocate the life out of France is Spain. They’ve done it recently too. If they can knock France out, that would be really cool.

As for us, we have bigger headaches like England, Switzerland, or even Norway to get past. Let’s hope for the best.

For some reason, Spain’s matches are kind of snoozefests, man. They’re such a boring team. Even with great players, they still play their usual boring style. They don’t even try to shoot at goal, even when they’re inside the box. Finally, they did—and they scored too.

Unfortunately in this tournament france will become champions easily,Argentina with this coach and this lineup have not any chance

Fan absolu de l’Albiceleste depuis la coupe du monde 98 en France où j’avais 10 ans et j’ai été voir argentine Pays-Bas au stade. C’était fou.
J’ai kiffé Batistuta et par la suite mon joueur préféré fut un certain Riquelme 🤩.
Celà n’a jamais déranger personne que je supportais l’Argentine en étant français, jusqu’à ce qu’elle gagne .
Voilà, pour la présentation.
Concernant, l’Argentine actuelle, je pense que l’Argentine manque effectivement de joueur déstabilisant et de profondeur.
Aussi, Buendia aurait selon moi fait beaucoup de bien sur l’aile gauche mais bon c’est trop tard pour celà.
Concernant la compo face à la Suisse , le joueur que j’aimerais voir titulaire serait Nico Paz en lieu et place de macca mais bon je n’y crois pas une seule seconde que Scaloni l’intégrera.
J’espère que ça passera mais pour moi Scaloni n’a pas suffisamment renouvelé son effectif et paradoxalement intégré les jeunes. L’équipe est très touchée physiquement, ce qui était la force de l’Argentine en 2022 est actuellement son talon d’Achille.

In other news, there looks to be links between Matias Soule moving from Roma to either Sunderland or Fulham.

Quite left field if we’re gonna be honest. I’m not entirely sure on how well Alvaro Arbeloa is as a coach. Fulham last season finished 11th so were pretty much firmly midtable, though they do have some nice talents in there: Jimenez, Smith Rowe, King, Robinson, Bassey, Diop, Berge, Kevin etc. They signed Oscar Bobb from Man City so he’d have to compete with him for minutes.

Sunderland finished 7th and have European football and their RW I believe is Trai Hume so would be easier for him to slot into their XI if need be.

Scaloni I believe is well aware that we have pretty mid wingers and that none of them have developed enough to warrant replacing Di Maria and including wingers in the lineup – Giuliano Simeone and Nico Gonzalez are pretty mid in the grand scheme of things.

(Let’s not talk about Matias Soule – travesty he was never given a fair chance at least)

So he’s tryna maximise what we’re good at – that is playing with the ball. His idea is that we dominate the ball and keeping the distances between our players short so we can quickly press immediately after losing the ball. Our physicality and athleticism amongst the best Argentinian footballers has fallen off a cliff since 2022. Age in the form of De Paul who has the most legs in this team (and he will continue starting no doubt because of that), Enzo bulking up since going to the Prem and Mac Allister just being physically shot under Slot. As a result, in terms of pressing, generally we are worse off and Scaloni has recognised that in past reports – yet we are still very strong in the counterpress immediately after losing the ball. Extensive periods of pressing is a weakness. As a result, Scaloni is trying to maximise our counterpress. For that he has to keep the distances between our players short so we can easily lock onto the opposition after losing the ball without having to cover large distances with our slower legs.

Wingers mean there’s larger gaps between our players which is why Scaloni hasn’t opted for it. No winger has been deemed good enough to sacrifice our counterpress – which is fair enough. I’d rather see that than have to rely on Giuliano Simeone to beat a full back 1v1 or watch Nico Gonzalez fluff his lines. Keep them as outlets for the end of the game to run into space if necessary.

We just need 1 change to improve this lineup under Scaloni’s system and that’s Nico Paz for Alexis. Paredes is better at dictating play than Enzo so he stays. Barco could do Paredes’s role of passing between the lines while offering a bit more dynamism but Paredes has the longer legs so can cover ground better. I’m PRAYING Scaloni doesn’t go all in on the same lineup because his words were saying that he COULD make a change but he also COULD keep the starting lineup. He’s not dead set nor decided yet. I’m praying he leans towards the one change of bringing Paz in.

No one seemed to notice, but there’s a crucial news for us. 20 y/o Swiss #10 Johan Manzambi is OUT for the game. He’s been their player with most G/A (3 goals, 2 assists)

I think we are getting carried away too. We haven’t faced any lesser team than the one we are supposed to face. they qualified for RO32/16 because they deserved it. This tournament had small teams giving big teams a run even for a short phase in every single match.

Of course we would have liked a better dominant win. Some momentary lapses resulted in goals conceded for us. I am hopeful that we will play two more matches.

Lionel scaloni is bullshit manger. He world cup won was a fluke, all of Argentina 3 wc is scandal.1978 they use general power,1986 handball,2022 penalty. Bye bye Argentina hahahhaha, they gonna out of the world cup tomorrow,bye bye hahahhaha

Scaloni is too obsessed with his friends eleven….I mean come on man it is high time to see wing play from the beginning not after going down 2 nil….At least start nico gonzalez from the beginning to force opposition defenders to guard their left side and getting free roaming spaces in the middle for MESSI

I completely understand the pride in how this group rallied to produce something extraordinary in the final 15 minutes. That fighting spirit is one of the hallmarks of this Argentina side.

But tournaments are rarely won by relying on extraordinary last-quarter comebacks. They are won by controlling games long before they reach that stage.

Think back to 2022. We controlled Australia for over 80 minutes. We dictated large phases of that nerve-wracking quarter-final against the Netherlands. Croatia barely laid a glove on us for 90 minutes. Even in the final, we were the better side for around 80 minutes before the game suddenly exploded.

This time, however, it feels as though we are constantly chasing control instead of imposing it. Every match becomes a rescue mission rather than a demonstration of authority.

If Scaloni believes this is the level of football we should be satisfied with, then I hope he is also studying how France and Spain are approaching this tournament. Their defensive organization begins high up the pitch, not just inside their own box. They close passing lanes in microseconds, recover possession almost instantly, and press relentlessly as a collective.

Argentina undoubtedly have the character to survive difficult moments. The question is whether we can rediscover the control that made us champions. Character wins matches; control wins tournaments.

If he thinks “we are playing well” after those performances, we are in serious trouble.

I am getting vibes of 2018 from this team management.

Why scaloni is so stubborn ,has the success got on his head?
Anyone can find out we lack width on the pitch , it’s easy to defend in the crowded central area for the opponent , even against Egypt we started making clear chances when Messi drifted wide on the right side. Plz start Simeone ,he is the best winger we have 🙏

So nervous….. just bought my ticket to the game. Sec 343 Row 3. Love to meet up with fellow fans from the group. will be heartbroken if they don’t win.