The team starts the working week thinking about their next World Cup rival, which will be Holland/Twitter
The Argentine national team, who celebrated their qualification for the quarter-finals of the World Cup organized by Qatar on Saturday, after the day of rest granted by Lionel Scaloni after the victory obtained against Australia, will today begin tracing the crossing scheduled for Friday at 16:00 : 00:00 with Holland, a filter that the Albiceleste representative must pass to access the semi-finals of the competition.
The delegation left the Áhmad bin Ali Stadium after 2am in Qatar, more than two hours after the match against the “Socceroos” ended. Initially the coaching staff’s idea was to schedule a light workout, as they did after every World Cup match, but the five days off until Friday allowed them to take a day off.
The team will resume training today at 18:00, focusing on Friday’s game
In this context, from today, the focus will be mainly on the physical condition of injured players, starting with Ángel Di María, the man from Rosario who was ultimately excluded from the substitutes’ bench due to a biceps injury in his right leg . he suffered against Poland. “Ángel wasn’t in a condition to play,” Scaloni said during the press conference after the match against Australia about “Fideo”, who in total will have completed -until next Friday- more than a week of rehabilitation.
Subsequently, Alejandro (“Papu”) Gómez himself confirmed after the match that he had suffered a sprained ankle and this was one of the reasons for the change which meant his departure 5 minutes into the complementary phase.
The break that the team will have between the aforementioned match with the Australians, which ended with a 2-1 victory, and the one that arrives against the Netherlands, was celebrated by Scaloni, who reiterated his anger at the short time of recovery between the match against Poland, at the end of group C, and the one corresponding to the round of 16, and also by captain Lionel Messi. “These days will come in handy because we wore ourselves out against two very physical teams,” said Leo, who has been one of those who has played every minute since the debut against Saudi Arabia, alongside Emiliano Martínez, Nicolás Otamendi and Rodrigo De Paul.
Our national team established itself at the University of Qatar in the early hours of 17 November, when it arrived from Abu Dhabi, where it played its last friendly match before the World Cup against the United Arab Emirates, and has since left the premises only on occasion of official matches and press conferences at the Media Center installed in the QNCC (Qatar National Convention Centre).
Next Friday’s match against the Netherlands will start at 16:00 (Qatar 22:00) and will be at the Lusail stadium, the largest of the facilities where the current World Cup will be played, with a capacity of 88,966 spectators.
For Ángel Di María, the day off wasn’t complete, as he used it to help his recovery
In principle, and admitting that preparation will only start today, there are sufficient elements to believe that Di María’s reappearance could be the only variant in Argentina, considering that Rosario’s injury was not serious and that the rest meant to be left out against Australia will play to their advantage. The displaced, of course, would be ‘Papu’ Gómez, who took his place against the Australians, suffering a slight sprained ankle which also puts him on edge.
Despite the day off that the team had, Di María trained yesterday, and the concentration showed that he is better, and that if he continues to recover in his current conditions, he will be able to be part of the match against the Netherlands. He will have four more training sessions to evolve and if he arrives safely he will return to the starting team. If not, he will go to the substitute bench.
The practice with which Argentina will resume preparation today will start at 18:00, and the media will be able to enter the first 15 minutes. Obviously all eyes will be on Di María and “Papu” Gómez, the only ones physically inferior to the others.
