Of course, it has been 36 years since Argentina won the World Cup, but the way it won the Copa America last year after a long gap of 28 years and continued the streak of being undefeated for the last 35 matches, it certainly gives hope that this team have the ability to repeat the 1986 title success. Then there was Maradona, today there is Lionel Messi, playing in his fifth and final World Cup, who has predicted his team to be champions, which he has never done before.
The first big takeaway from Messi’s prediction is that he now has a trio in Angel Di Maria and Dybala that the Argentine team can rely on. Di María has become the team’s go-to player since scoring the decisive goal in the Copa America final against Brazil. His tuning with Messi is awesome. At the same time, Dybala’s dribbling skills, technical understanding of the game, passing and link-up play are quite different from the rest of the forward players in the world. Messi knows that Dybala, like him, is a master of powerful freekicks and penalty kicks from outside the box. With this art, his trust in Dybala increases even more. Martínez, who is known to be a good coordination player, is ready to replace any one of these three in case of injury.
Not only have that, Rodrigo Depaul, Alejandro Gomez and Leandro Paredes been known to create chances for Messi. Now the thing to be seen here will be which of these players emerges especially as an alternative to Lo Celso. Whenever Messi was marked, Lo Celso proved to be effective for the team. But this time he is not in the team. Whereas, Messi is known for his upper body strength and left footed goals. Controlled dribbling, positioning, finishing combined with blistering pace make him unlike any other forward of the moment. And with Acuña, Otamendi and Romairo in the line of defense, it is time for a big test for experienced goalkeeper Martinez. Midfielder Leandro Paredes has played very few matches for Juventus this year. His fitness can play an important role for the team.
Argentina, champions of 1978 and 1986, rely so heavily on midfielders that they have two fewer forwards than Brazil. Despite this, this team prefers to play with 4-2-3-1 formation. Most of the players in the team are in the age group of 24 to 30. The team, which plays with short passes, does not have a specialist winger except for Nico Gonzales, so sometimes coach Scaloni plays Di Maria in the winger position. Scaloni has already outlined his starting XI by fielding different line-ups for the matches against Jamaica and Honduras in the past. Argentina are drawn in Group C, a relatively less difficult group, along with Saudi Arabia, Mexico and Poland.