Lionel Scaloni must have breathed a sigh of relief when he found out that finally FIFA has approved a list of 26 players for those selected to go to the World Cup in Qatar. Reducing it to 23 would have meant a few sleepless nights and further discussions with his team. The coach of the Argentine National Team came to the tour with twenty sure names and the matches against Italy and Estonia and the training sessions at the Athletic Bilbao campus helped him complete four more boxes. Scaloni is missing two players. And that final decision will be made in the September call, the last before the World Cup.
With the exceptions of the case, such as a disabling injury that prevents reaching the first match against Saudi Arabia in optimal conditions, on November 23 at 7 in the morning (our country’s time) on that list there will be three or four goalkeepers, eight or nine defenders, seven midfielders and seven or eight forwards. According to the data that the technical body was filtering during the past week, they already have the passage definitively marked Emiliano Martinez and Franco Armani (archers), Nahuel Molina, Gonzalo Montiel, Cristian Romero, Germán Pezzella, Nicolás Otamendi, Lisandro Martínez, Marcos Acuña and Nicolás Tagliafico (defenders), Rodrigo De Paul, Exequiel Palacios, Leandro Paredes, Guido Rodríguez, Alexis Mac Allister, Giovani Lo Celso and Aeljandro “Papu” Gómez (ruffles) and Lionel Messi, Paulo Dybala, Lautaro Martínez, Joaquín Correa, Julian Alvarez, Angel Di María and Nicolás González (forwards).
It remains to designate the third goalkeeper between Juan Musso and Geronimo Rulli and one more player Come in John Foyth, Nehuen Perez, Marcos Senesi AlreadyAngel Strap. Although some sources recommend not definitively ruling out Lucas Martinez Quarta, Nicolas Dominguez, Lucas Ocampos, Emiliano Buendia Y Lucas Alario, the five who did not pass the last cut. They run from further back, but they have not stopped being taken into account.
There is an additional fact regarding the almost definitive list: of those 24, the eleven who started playing the Finalíssima against Italy at Wembley together with the four substitute defenders, Leandro Paredes (who did not play because he was recovering from an operation), Guido Rodríguez, Papu Gómez, Joaquín Correa and Nicolás González will go to the World Cup under any circumstances (except injury). For Scaloni they comfortably passed all the exams. Palacios, Mac Allister, Dybala and Julian Álvarez, in this context for now are safe. But they depend on how they do at the start of the official European season next August and the number of minutes they can accumulate until on November 14, the date on which all question marks will be finished. That day Scaloni will deliver the final list. Eight days later against Saudi Arabia, Argentina’s World Cup illusion will be launched once again.
