Injury-hit Argentina hope to reach full fitness at World Cup

With the excitement of the Liga Profesional de Fútbol Apertura now out of the way – Belgrano are champions, how crazy is that?! – our attention shifts seamlessly to a tournament of arguably equal, if not greater global significance. That’s right, the World Cup is just around the corner, and judging by the amount of football-related advertisements and the manic trade in Panini cards there is huge anticipation over the current holders’ prospective defence of their title.

Lionel Scaloni released his list last Thursday: the Argentine World Cup squad list, or the admittance list for an overstretched Buenos Aires hospital ward, depending on how you look at it. Argentina certainly has the talent to make a deep run again in the United States, Mexico and Canada, but the symbolic red crosses which right now sit next to so many of those names cannot help but be a concern barely a week before the Selección debuts in the tournament against Algeria.

As of this weekend seven of the 26 squad members are carrying some sort of physical gripe which at the very least will cause them to miss a part of the team’s pre-World Cup preparations, if not some of the matches themselves. And those are not squad members picked to make up the numbers. Goalkeeper Emiliano ‘Dibu’ Martínez is one particular worry, having fractured a finger while leading Aston Villa to victory in May’s Europa League final.

Lionel Messi is also racing against the clock to regain fitness. Argentina’s captain and talisman is fighting a muscular issue that will limit his involvement against Honduras on Saturday night and Iceland the following Tuesday. Others on infirmary watch include Leandro Paredes (hamstring), Nico Paz (knee), Julián Álvarez (ankle) and Thiago Almada (muscular fatigue); while surely the greatest concern comes at the back, with Cristian Romero battling his way back from a knee ligament problem that ruined his Tottenham season and both right-backs, Nahuel Molina and Gonzalo Montiel, in varying states of disrepair.

The composition of Scaloni’s squad clearly shows that he is ready to put his faith once more in the boys that took Argentina to glory in Qatar, with the core of that group essentially unchanged save for a few tweaks around the fringes. That is laudable enough, and understandable too: this generation remains in its prime, with a couple of key players from 2022 expected to be even better this time round after flourishing in the intervening three and a bit years.

But with that continuity comes risk. This World Cup has clearly come at a difficult time for many of those stars, and the coach’s gamble is that they will be ready just in time for what will be the most arduous Finals in history, with more games than ever before and played largely under elevated temperatures at the height of the northern hemisphere summer.

If it pays off, Scaloni’s reputation as one of, if not the greatest Argentina coach of all time will be assured; if not, it could be a hard slog through the next couple of months with so many familiar faces spending time on the treatment table and trying to get back to form.

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