Buenos Aires (AFP)
After he missed the last two matches due to his infection with the Corona virus, captain Lionel Messi returned to the Argentina squad for the last two rounds of the South American qualifiers qualifying for the 2022 World Cup.
Coach Luis Scaloni announced the squad that will face Venezuela in Buenos Aires and Ecuador in Jayaquil on the 25th and 29th of this month, respectively, and it included seven young players who play in European club academies.
Scaloni aims to summon them to prevent losing their efforts to other teams, such as Manchester United’s 17-year-old winger Alejandro Garnacho and Real Madrid’s Spanish midfielder Nicolas Bass, also 17, who previously played with the Spain youth team.
The Argentine national team qualified for the finals, accompanied by its Brazilian rival, who leads the unified group by 4 points over Messi’s companions.
The two arch-rivals are still waiting for FIFA to set a new date for the match that stopped between them in September in the sixth round, a few minutes after its launch in Sao Paulo due to the local health authorities entering the field for accusing four Argentine players of violating Corona virus protocols.
And the health authorities said at the time that four Argentine professional players in the English Premier League at the time should enter “quarantine immediately”, for violating the protocols of the Corona pandemic.
And the authorities indicated that Christian Romero and his former teammate in Tottenham Giovanni Lo Celso (currently Villarreal), Aston Villa goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez and his club colleague Emiliano Buendia, had provided “wrong information” in their entry form to Brazil, and did not declare their stay in the United Kingdom during the fourteen days prior to their arrival.
In the decision it took in mid-February to repeat the match without specifying a date for it, FIFA decided to suspend the four Argentine players for two matches for “non-compliance” with its laws related to international matches after the pandemic, and imposed fines on the two national federations amounting to approximately 590,000 dollars for the Brazilian and 270 A thousand dollars for the Argentine.
Here is the lineup:
Goalkeepers: Franco Armani (River Plate), Jeronimo Rulli (Villarreal, Spain), Juan Muso (Atalanta, Italy).
Defenders: Goncalo Montiel (Sevilla, Spain), Nahuel Molina (Udinese, Italy), Nicolas Otamendi (Benfica, Portugal), Juan Foyth (Villarreal), Lucas Martinez Carta (Fiorentina, Italy), German Betsella (Real Betis, Spain), Lisandro Martinez and Nicolas Taliavico ( Dutch Ajax)
Midfield: Rodrigo de Paul (Atletico Madrid, Spain), Leandro Paredes (Paris Saint-Germain, France), Guido Rodrigues (Real Betis), Exquiel Palacios (Bayer Leverkusen, Germany), Alexis McAlister (Brighton, England), Lucas Ocampos (Sevilla), Alejandro Garnacho (Manchester United), Manuel Lancini (West Ham), Nicholas Bass (Real Madrid), Thiago Giralnic (Villarreal), Franco Carboni and Valentin Carboni (Inter, Italy)
Forwards: Lionel Messi and Angel Di Maria (Paris Saint-Germain), Lautaro Martinez and Joaquin Correa (Inter), Nicolas Gonzalez (Fiorentina), Angel Correa (Atletico Madrid, Spain), Julien Alvares (River Plate), Matthias Sulley (Juventus, Italy), Lucas Pouille (Elche, Spain), Luca Romero (Lazio, Italy).
#Messi #leads #Block #Road #squad