Football World Cup 2018 / Argentina

Football World Cup 2018 : Argentina
Trainer	Jorge Sampaoli
captain	Lionel Messi
Qualified as	Third in the South America qualification
World rankings before the tournament	5
Tournament result	Round of 16
Games won	1
Games tie	1
Games lost	2
Gates	6: 9

This article covers the Argentina national soccer team at the 2018 World Cup . Argentina could only qualify on the last day of the South American qualification. The team took part for the 17th time and since 1974 without interruption.

qualification

The team qualified through the qualification of the South American football association CONMEBOL .

Games

Lionel Messi , Argentina’s top scorer in qualifying

Argentina started the qualification under national coach Gerardo Martino , who had taken over from Alejandro Sabella after losing the final of the 2014 World Cup . Although he was able to lead the team to the final of the Copa America in 2015 and the final of the 2016 Copa America Centenario , the team lost both finals against Chile on penalties . In addition, things went badly in the World Cup qualification. The first game, a home game against Ecuador, was lost 2-0 and for the first time ever a home game against the Ecuadorians. Martino used 22 players in the first three games, none of which Argentina won, with only goalkeeper Sergio Romero , Ángel Di María , captain Javier Mascherano , first goalscorer Ezequiel Lavezzi and Nicolás Otamendi appearing in all three games. The next three games could then be won, but in August 2016 he resigned from his post after the second defeat in the final against Chile. But things didn't go any better under his successor Edgardo Bauza and Argentina threatened to miss the World Cup for the first time since 1970. In April 2017, Bauza was released after a 2-0 defeat in Bolivia. Jorge Sampaoli , who led Chile to the Copa title against Argentina in 2015, was signed as his successor . No qualifying game was lost under him, but in the first three games it was only enough to draw, so that the Argentines were only in sixth place before the last game. This game took the Argentines to Quito , 2850 meters high , where they last won a game against Ecuador in 2001, but then lost and drew twice. Ecuador, which started qualifying with four wins, then slacked off considerably and even before this game had no chance of qualifying for the World Cup. In the game, which was only decisive for the Argentines, they fell behind after 37 seconds. Lionel Messi was able to equalize in the 11th minute, put the Argentines in the lead in the 18th minute and make the final score 3-1 in the 62nd minute. In addition, since the teams from Colombia and Peru that were placed in front of them drew in the parallel games and Chile lost in Brazil, Argentina jumped to third place and qualified directly for the World Cup finals.

Ultimately, the three coaches played a total of 45 players in the 18 games, ten of them only once. Only goalkeepers Sergio Romero and Ángel Di María were used in all games and Romero did not miss a minute. Javier Mascherano, who had to pause twice after the second yellow card, and Nicolás Otamendi, who had to pause three times and received a total of seven yellow cards, brought it to 15 games. The top scorer was captain Lionel Messi with seven goals, who was only used in ten games due to injury and was mostly represented by Mascherano as captain in the other games. Messi had already resigned after the defeat on penalties at the Copa América Centenario 2016 , but could be persuaded by Bauza to make a comeback. After the game against Chile on March 23, 2017, he was suspended for the next four qualifying matches for insulting an assistant referee following a decision by the FIFA Disciplinary Committee. The decision of the FIFA Disciplinary Committee was overturned by the FIFA Appeal Committee on May 5, so that Messi could be used in the final qualifying matches. Messi was the only Argentinian player with more than seven games who had not received a yellow card. A total of nine players scored the goals for Argentina, and they also benefited from an own goal by a Venezuelan player. With 19 goals, the Argentines are the South American World Cup participant with the fewest goals. Only the unskilled Bolivians scored fewer goals. And only 20% of the players were able to score a goal - only the Egyptians had fewer scorers in their team with 15.2%.

date	Venue	host		guest	Result	Goal scorers for Argentina
08/10/2015	Buenos Aires	Argentina	-	Ecuador	0: 2 (0: 0)
13/10/2015	Asunción	Paraguay	-	Argentina	0-0
11/13/2015 1	Buenos Aires	Argentina	-	Brazil	1: 1 (1: 0)	Ezequiel Lavezzi (33.)
11/17/2015	Barranquilla	Colombia	-	Argentina	0: 1 (0: 1)	Lucas Biglia (20th)
March 24, 2016	Santiago de Chile	Chile	-	Argentina	1: 2 (1: 2)	Ángel Di María (19th), Gabriel Mercado (25th)
03/29/2016	Cordoba	Argentina	-	Bolivia	2: 0 (2: 0)	Gabriel Mercado (19th), Lionel Messi (29th / penalty)
09/01/2016	Mendoza	Argentina	-	Uruguay	1: 0 (1: 0)	Lionel Messi (42nd)
09/06/2016	Merida	Venezuela	-	Argentina	2: 2 (1: 0)	Lucas Pratto (57th), Nicolás Otamendi (82nd)
10/06/2016	Lima	Peru	-	Argentina	2: 2 (0: 1)	Ramiro Funes Mori (15th) Gonzalo Higuaín (77th)
10/11/2016	Cordoba	Argentina	-	Paraguay	0: 1 (0: 1)
11/10/2016	Belo Horizonte	Brazil	-	Argentina	3: 0 (2: 0)
11/15/2016	San Juan	Argentina	-	Colombia	3: 0 (2: 0)	Lionel Messi (10th), Lucas Pratto (22nd), Ángel Di María (84th)
03/23/2017	Buenos Aires	Argentina	-	Chile	1: 0 (1: 0)	Lionel Messi (15th / penalty)
03/28/2017	La Paz	Bolivia	-	Argentina	2: 0 (1: 0)
08/31/2017	Montevideo	Uruguay	-	Argentina	0-0
05.09.2017	Buenos Aires	Argentina	-	Venezuela	1: 1 (0: 0)	Own goal Venezuela (54th)
05.10.2017	Buenos Aires	Argentina	-	Peru	0-0
10/10/2017	Quito	Ecuador	-	Argentina	1: 3 (1: 2)	Lionel Messi (11th, 19th, 62nd)

¹ This game has been postponed by one day due to the unplayability of the course.

Closing table

Pl.	country	Sp.	S.	U	N	Gates	Diff.	Points
1.	Brazil	18th	12	5	1	041:110	+30	41
2.	Uruguay	18th	9	4th	5	032:200	+12	31
3.	Argentina	18th	7th	7th	4th	019:160	+3	28
4th	Colombia	18th	7th	6th	5	021:190	+2	27
5.	Peru	18th	7th	5	6th	027:260	+1	26th
6th	Chile	18th	8th	2	8th	026:270	−1	26th
7th	Paraguay	18th	7th	3	8th	019:250	−6	24
8th.	Ecuador	18th	6th	2	10	026:290	−3	20th
9.	Bolivia	18th	4th	2	12	016:380	−22	14th
10.	Venezuela	18th	2	6th	10	019:350	−16	12

preparation

Games

date	Result	opponent	venue	Argentine goal scorers
November 11, 2017	1-0	Russia	Moscow	Sergio Aguero (86.)
November 14, 2017	2: 4	Nigeria	Krasnodar ( RUS )	Éver Banega (27th), Sergio Agüero (36th)
23 March 2018	2-0	Italy	Manchester ( GBR )	Éver Banega (75th), Manuel Lanzini (85th)
March 27, 2018	1: 6	Spain	Madrid	Nicolás Otamendi (39.)
29 May 2018	4-0	Haiti	Buenos Aires	Lionel Messi (17th / penalty, 58th, 66th), Sergio Agüero (69th)
June 9, 2018	called off	Israel	Jerusalem

Note: Teams in italics are not qualified for the World Cup.

Quarter

The team will be based at the "Training Base Bronnizy" near Moscow , where the team will use the training ground of the Syroyezhkin Sports School for training.

Squad

The preliminary roster with 35 players was presented on May 15, 2018. On May 21, the final roster with 23 players followed. Since Sergio Romero was out due to a knee injury, Nahuel Guzman was nominated. Was not considered Mauro Icardi , one of the two top scorers of the Italian Serie A 2017/18 . Manuel Lanzini was also unable to take part in the tournament due to a torn cruciate ligament. Thus, Enzo Pérez re-nominated.

position	No.	Surname	birth date	Calls	Gates	society	debut	Last use						World Cup participation	World Cup games (before 2018)	World Cup goals (before 2018)
goal	12	Franco Armani	10/16/1986	0	0	CA River Plate	2018	-	2
	23	Willy Caballero	09/28/1981	3	0	Chelsea FC P	2018	05/29/2018	2
	01	Nahuel Guzmán	02/10/1986	8th	0	UANL Tigres MA	2014	06/13/2017
Defense	08th	Marcos Acuña	10/28/1991	10	0	Sporting Lisbon	2016	05/29/2018	1		1
	04th	Cristian Ansaldi	09/20/1986	5	1	Torino FC	2009	11/18/2014
	06th	Federico Fazio	03/17/1987	9	1	AS Roma	2011	05/29/2018	1
	02	Gabriel Mercado	03/18/1987	19th	3	Sevilla FC	2010	03/27/2018	3	1	1
	17th	Nicolás Otamendi	02/12/1988	54	4th	Manchester City M	2009	05/29/2018	4th		2			2010	3	0
	16	Marcos Rojo	03/20/1990	56	2	Manchester United	2011	05/29/2018	3	1	1			2014	6th	1
	03	Nicolás Tagliafico	08/31/1992	4th	0	Ajax Amsterdam	2017	05/29/2018	4th		1
midfield	07th	Ever Banega	06/29/1988	62	7th	Sevilla FC	2008	05/29/2018	3		2
	05	Lucas Biglia	01/30/1986	57	1	AC Milan	2011	03/27/2018	1					2014	6th	0
	11	Ángel Di María	02/14/1988	94	19th	Paris St. Germain D.	2009	05/29/2018	3	1				2010, 2014	10	1
	15th	Enzo Pérez	02/22/1986	23	1	CA River Plate	2009	11/14/2017	3
	20th	Giovani Lo Celso	04/09/1996	5	0	Paris St. Germain D.	2017	05/29/2018
	14th	Javier Mascherano *	06/08/1984	143	4th	Hebei China Fortune	2003	05/29/2018	4th		2			2006, 2010, 2014	16	0
	13	Maximiliano Meza	01/15/1992	2	0	CA Independiente CS	2018	05/29/2018	4th
	22nd	Cristian Pavón	01/21/1996	5	0	Boca Juniors M	2017	05/29/2018	4th
	18th	Eduardo Salvio	07/13/1990	9	0	Benfica Lisbon	2009	05/29/2018	2
Storm	19th	Sergio Aguero	06/02/1988	85	36	Manchester City M	2006	05/29/2018	4th	2				2010, 2014	8th	0
	21st	Paulo Dybala	11/15/1993	12	0	Juventus Turin D.	2015	11/14/2017	1
	09	Gonzalo Higuaín	12/10/1987	72	32	Juventus Turin D.	2009	05/29/2018	3					2010, 2014	11	5
	10	Lionel Messi ** T	06/24/1987	124	64	FC Barcelona D.	2005	05/29/2018	4th	1	1			2006, 2010, 2014	15th	5
Coaching staff	Trainer	Jorge Sampaoli	March 13, 1960				2017		4th
Appearances and goals as of May 29, 2018, after the game against Haiti
↑ Positions according to information from the Argentine Association ( afa.com: Nahuel Guzmán reemplazará a Sergio Romero ( Memento of the original from June 12, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link accordingly Instructions and then remove this notice. ).  ↑ Numbers according to the official squad list ↑ * = player is a national record player from Argentina, ** = player is a record player from Argentina, T = player was top scorer of the league in the World Cup year ↑ D = champions and cup winners in the World Cup year, M = champions in the World Cup year, MA = champions of the Apertura 2017, P = cup winners in the World Cup year, CS = winners of the Copa Sudamericana 2017

Finals

Group draw

Moscow (VR) Saint Petersburg (VR) Nizhny Novgorod (VR) Kazan (AF) Bronnizy

Venues and quarters (blue / italic) of the Argentine team

For the draw of the qualifying groups on December 1st, Argentina was assigned to Pot 1 and could therefore not be drawn into a group with world champions Germany, record world champions Brazil, European champions Portugal or host Russia. In addition, the Argentines could not be drawn from any of the three other South American teams. In group D , the team will face newcomers Iceland , Croatia and Nigeria .

The Argentinians met Nigeria in the preliminary rounds in 1994, 2002, 2010 and 2014. Argentina won all four games, but only with one goal difference. With this fifth encounter, this will be the most frequent pairing of the World Cup preliminary round. In addition, both met in the preliminary round of the King Fahd Cup in 1995 , where they parted goalless. In June 2011, the Argentinians lost 4-1 in Nigeria, using only two players from the squad for the 2011 Copa America, which took place shortly afterwards . An investigation into unusually high stakes did not lead to a published result and the game continues to be listed by FIFA. Three months later, the Argentines won a friendly match in Dhaka ( Bangladesh ) against the Nigerians 3-1. Shortly before the World Cup draw, the Argentines lost 4-2 after leading 2-0, with no Messi and goalkeeper Romero.

The Argentines played against Croatia once at a World Cup: in 1998, when the Croatians took part for the first time, they won 1-0 in the preliminary round. While Argentina were eliminated in the quarter-finals, the Croatians were third in the end. There is also a win, a draw and a defeat in friendly matches.

Argentina have never played against Iceland.

Argentina has already played against the USSR and Russia in Moscow, but not in the other two preliminary round venues.

Group stage / group D matches

→ Main article : Football World Cup 2018 / Group D

Pl.	country	Sp.	S.	U	N	Gates	Diff.	Points
1.	Croatia	3	3	0	0	007: 100	+6	09
2.	Argentina	3	1	1	1	003: 500	−2	04th
3.	Nigeria	3	1	0	2	003: 400	−1	03
4th	Iceland	3	0	1	2	002: 500	−3	01

Saturday, June 16, 2018, 4:00 p.m. (3:00 p.m. CEST) in Moscow (Spartak Stadium)
Argentina	-	Iceland	1: 1 (1: 1)	19 ′ Sergio Aguero
Thursday, June 21, 2018, 9:00 p.m. (8:00 p.m. CEST) in Nizhny Novgorod
Argentina	-	Croatia	0: 3 (0: 0)
Tue., June 26, 2018, 9:00 p.m. (8:00 p.m. CEST) in Saint Petersburg
Nigeria	-	Argentina	1: 2 (0: 1)	14. ′ Messi , 86. ′ Rojo

Games of the knockout round

Sat., June 30, 2018, 5:00 p.m. (4:00 p.m. CEST) in Kazan ( Kazan Arena )
France	-	Argentina	4: 3 (1: 1)	41 ′ Di Maria , 48 ′ Mercado , 90 + 3 ′ Agüero

There were two previous World Cup games against France, both of which were won in the group stage: they won 1-0 in the first ever Argentine game in 1930, and 2-1 at the home World Cup. There were also nine friendlies with four wins, three draws and two defeats. The last game in February 2009 was a 2-0 win in Marseille . The last defeat came in March 1986 when they lost 2-0 in Paris .

Web links

Commons : Soccer World Cup 2018 / Argentina  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ fifa.com: "Lionel Messi suspended for four games"
2. ↑ fifa.com: "Decision of the FIFA Appeal Committee on Lionel Messi"
3. ↑ Nicaragua was originally mentioned as an opponent.
4. ↑ weltfussball.de: "After protest: Argentina cancels game in Jerusalem"
5. ↑ fifa.com: 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia - Team Base Camps
6. ↑ afa.com: Lista de preseleccionados
7. ^ Nahuel Guzmán reemplazará a Sergio Romero. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on May 22, 2018 ; accessed on May 30, 2018 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
8. ↑ RP ONLINE: World Cup 2018: Argentina's goalkeeper Sergio Romero is out in Russia. Retrieved May 30, 2018 . 
9. ↑ Sport1.de: World Cup 2018: Argentina's Sergio Romero missed World Cup after knee injury . In: Sport1.de . ( sport1.de [accessed on May 30, 2018]).
10. ↑ Manuel Lanzini seriously injured | Drama about Argentina star: cruciate ligament rupture shortly before the World Cup! In: sportbild.de . ( bild.de [accessed on June 9, 2018]).
11. ↑ Shock diagnosis! Argentina's Lanzini is out for World Cup . In: sport.de . ( sport.de [accessed on June 9, 2018]).
12. ↑ Argentina: Enzo Perez moves up for injured Lanzini | Goal.com . ( goal.com [accessed June 9, 2018]).
13. ↑ Argentina vs. Nigeria 2 - 4