The 2014 World Cup runners-up will be making their 12th consecutive finals appearance this summer – but only just.
All is not well with Jorge Sampaoli’s side following a near-disastrous qualification campaign and a chastening 6-1 friendly defeat to Spain in March. Uncertainties over team personnel and tactics, coupled with an over-reliance on Lionel Messi, mean that doubts linger over Argentina’s ability to progress deep into this year’s tournament.
Sampaoli’s squad is, however, littered with potentially explosive Fantasy assets, most notably in attack. We scrutinise the two-times World Cup winners and the players who could make the biggest impact.
Road to Qualification
Argentina’s road to Russia was essentially a qualification campaign of two halves: with Lionel Messi and without him.
The Barcelona forward missed eight of his country’s 18 qualifying matches through injury or suspension, with Argentina winning only one of those fixtures in his absence and accumulating a meagre average of 0.9 points per game.
When the 2014 Golden Ball winner was available for selection, that mean increased substantially to 2.1 points per game. Indeed, Argentina lost just one of the ten qualifying matches that Messi started.
Argentina sat in eighth position after their first three group fixtures, having lost their opening-day match against Ecuador and subsequently being held to draws by Paraguay and ten-man Brazil.
Messi had missed all three of those matches, but La Albiceleste were to finally win without their talisman in their subsequent fixture, a 1-0 away victory in Columbia.
With Messi back in the side, Argentina won their next three CONMEBOL matches to top the ten-team group, but that was to be the best their qualification campaign would get. It was during this sequence of victories that Argentina lost both the final of the 2016 Copa America and the services of their then-coach Gerardo Martino, with Messi also briefly retiring from international duty before swiftly reversing his decision.
A four-match winless run, culminating in a 3-0 defeat to Brazil, left Argentina outside the qualifying spots in sixth place after 11 matches.
Back-to-back home wins over Colombia and Chile briefly stopped the rot, before another four-match run without a victory left Argentina on the brink of missing the World Cup for the first time since 1970.
With Sampaoli now at the helm following Edgardo Bauza’s brief tenure as coach, Argentina managed to win their final match 3-1 in Ecuador to finally seal an automatic qualification place. Typically, Messi was their salvation: the five-times Ballon d’Or winner scoring a superb hat-trick in Quito.
Despite having the likes of Messi, Sergio Aguero, Paulo Dybala and Gonzalo Higuain at their disposal, Argentina scored only 19 goals in their 18 qualification matches: only Bolivia (16) scored fewer. By way of comparison, Brazil found the back of the net 41 times in qualifying.
Argentina did, however, have the second-best defence in South American qualification. Only Brazil (11) conceded fewer goals than the 1978 and 1986 World Cup winners (16), who kept eight clean sheets in all.
Sampaoli, Bauza and Martino used an incredible 45 players between them during qualification, with indecision dogging the former’s experiments to fit a team around Messi. 60 players were said to be under consideration for a World Cup place at the start of 2018.
Despite their inglorious qualification campaign, Argentina lost only one of their eight matches contested against the other South American sides who made it to Russia (a 3-0 defeat in Brazil their only defeat).
Sampaoli’s formation for the World Cup is anyone’s guess: having chiefly used a 3-4-2-1 or 3-3-3-1 since taking over as manager in 2017, Sampaoli employed a bizarre 2-3-5 in the 6-0 win over Singapore in June of last year and utilised a 4-2-3-1 in the March friendlies against Italy and Spain. This last set-up appears to be the most likely formation that the former Chile coach will use going forward, but the tactical experiments look set to continue just two weeks before Argentina’s World Cup opener against Iceland.
Most starts: Angel Di Maria (18), Nicolas Otamendi, Javier Mascherano (15), Lucas Biglia (13), Lionel Messi, Ever Banega (10), Marcos Rojo, Gabriel Mercado (9), Gonzalo Higuain (7), Sergio Aguero (5), Paulo Dybala (4)
Most goals: Lionel Messi (7), Angel Di Maria, Gabriel Mercado (2)
Most assists: Lionel Messi, Angel Di Maria, Gonzalo Higuain (2)
Goalkeeper Sergio Romero, who appeared in all 18 of Argentina’s matches, misses the World Cup through injury. Ramiro Funes Mori, who made ten starts during qualification, didn’t make the 23-man final squad.
Since sealing their spot in this year’s finals, Argentina have contested five friendlies: wins over Russia, Italy and Haiti were punctuated by 4-2 and 6-1 defeats to Nigeria and Spain respectively.
The Key Targets
Lionel Messi and ten others? The consensus seems to be that Argentina’s hopes of a first World Cup win in 32 years lie squarely on the shoulders of the Barcelona star.
Messi is the joint-most expensive player on both Fantasy iTeam (£8.2m) and McDonald’s FIFA (£12.0m) World Cup games, but it would be a brave move to go without the 30-year-old given his pedigree.
Only Edinson Cavani (ten) scored more goals in CONMEBOL qualification than Messi (seven), despite the Argentina captain missing eight of his country’s 18 fixtures. Messi was, in fact, the only Argentinian player on the scoresheet in La Albiceleste’s final six group fixtures.
On penalty duties for the national side, Messi scored a hat-trick – including one from the spot – and set up Sergio Aguero’s goal in the 4-0 win over Haiti on 30 May.
Argentina’s reliance on Messi during qualification (see above) was underscored by their 6-1 capitulation to Spain in March, which Messi missed through injury.
The Barcelona forward scored 34 goals in 36 La Liga appearances for his club this season.
With three goals in as many friendly appearances since November, Sergio Aguero (£7.9m on Fantasy iTeam | £10.0m on McDonald’s FIFA) may get the nod to play in the centre-forward position in Argentina’s World Cup opener against Iceland on 16 June.
Injury effectively ended Aguero’s Premier League season in March, with the Manchester City striker only playing 14 minutes of club football from Gameweek 30 until the end of the season.
Fitness is the main concern surrounding Aguero’s inclusion, with Gonzalo Higuain (£7.9m on Fantasy iTeam | £9.0m on McDonald’s FIFA) selected to lead the line in that aforementioned win over Haiti. Aguero replaced Higuain on the hour mark, though, and scored within ten minutes to strengthen his case for inclusion.
Higuain and Aguero’s struggle for goals during qualification was indicative of Argentina’s wider problems: the pair, with a combined 37 league goals this season, scored only one goal between them in 12 qualifying group starts. Higuain hasn’t scored for the national team since October 2016.
Angel Di Maria (£7.1m on Fantasy iTeam | £9.0m on McDonald’s FIFA) is the stand-out midfield option for Fantasy managers, though two goals and as many assists in 18 qualifying appearances represented a modest attacking return for the Paris Saint-Germain winger.
Di Maria has no goal involvement in four subsequent international friendly starts, though did register 11 goals and six assists in Ligue I this season.
Fantasy managers will be interested to see if Nicolas Otamendi (£6.1m on Fantasy iTeam | £6.0m on McDonald’s FIFA) can replicate his form for Manchester City this season, having scored four goals and kept 15 clean sheets for the Premier League champions in 2017/18.
Otamendi was the only Argentinian defender to make more than ten starts during qualification, keeping seven clean sheets and registering a goal and an assist to boot.
The Long Shots
With Javier Mascherano’s powers waning, Sampaoli is looking to the future with 22-year-old PSG midfielder Giovani Lo Celso (£6.2m on Fantasy iTeam | £6.0m on McDonald’s FIFA).
Though likely to be stationed in a deeper role than Di Maria, Messi et al, the box-to-box midfielder has the legs to both initiate and support the Argentinian attack, and has racked up three assists in Argentina’s friendlies since November. Lo Celso and Otamendi were the only players to start all five of these fixtures.
Though he made no starts in qualification, Manuel Lanzini (£6.3m on Fantasy iTeam | £6.5m on McDonald’s FIFA) has made a late dash for a starting place.
The West Ham midfielder scored his first international goal against Italy in March and was selected in Sampaoli’s starting XI in the 4-0 win over Haiti.
Having scored two goals in qualification, Gabriel Mercado (£5.9m on Fantasy iTeam | £5.5m on McDonald’s FIFA) is a cheaper alternative than Otamendi in defence but faces competition from Cristian Ansaldi and even winger Eduardo Salvio for the right-back role.
Upcoming Friendlies
None
Further Analysis
Our comprehensive World Cup guide can be found here.
Group A – Egypt, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Uruguay
Group B – Iran, Morocco, Portugal, Spain
Group C – Australia, Peru, France, Denmark
Group D – Argentina, Iceland, Croatia, Nigeria
Group E – Brazil, Costa Rica, Switzerland, Serbia
Group F – Mexico, Germany, Sweden, South Korea
Group G – Belgium, Panama, Tunisia, England
Group H – Senegal, Japan, Poland, Colombia
Our editor’s Fantasy World Cup tips as told to Proper Sport
FANTASY ITEAM
Fantasy Football Scout is supporting Fantasy iTeam, a free World Cup game available on a number of mobile devices, including iPhone, iPad, iPodTouch and Android. We have an official Fantasy Football Scout League open to UK users only, with a £1000 of Amazon vouchers to give out, split between the top three performers. There’s also the small matter of £10k worth of prizes available in the main competitions: Overall World Championship and Manager of the Gameround.
Click here for details and here to sign up.
Our League name is Fantasy Football Scout and the pin is 1887.
Please note, users must be over 18 and based in the UK to join our league.
5 years, 11 months ago
That number 6 is a big lad - who is he?