Argentina's World Cup Challenge: Balancing Loyalty and Youth

Argentina arrive in Kansas City looking very familiar. Almost defiantly so.

Seventeen of the 26 players who delivered the World Cup in Qatar are back together, the band largely unchanged, the faces etched into recent football history now staring down one last brutal cycle. From the XI that started the final against France in Lusail, only Ángel Di María is missing, the winger having signed off from international duty with a Player of the Match display in the 2024 Copa America final.

It is the kind of continuity international managers dream about. It is also the kind that can turn, without warning, into a problem.

A golden core, creaking at the edges

Lionel Scaloni has built his reign on trust. Sixteen members of this squad were with him for his first trophy, the 2021 Copa America. While Brazil have carried just 11 players from their 2019 group into this World Cup — three of them goalkeepers — and England have retained only nine from their Euro 2021 finalists, Argentina have stayed together like a touring rock band reluctant to leave the stage.

That bond has been priceless. It has carried them through penalty shootouts, extra-time collapses and nights when only muscle memory and Messi could drag them over the line.

Now the question is simple and uncomfortable: has this group got one more run in them?

Nine members of the squad are the wrong side of 30. Emiliano Martínez. Rodrigo De Paul. Nicolás Otamendi. And, of course, Lionel Messi, who will turn 39 during what will be a record sixth World Cup. The average age nudges over 29. The legs, once Argentina’s relentless weapon, are under scrutiny.

At the other end, the future feels thin. Only three players are under 25 — Giuliano Simeone, Valentín Barco and Nico Paz. Big talents such as Franco Mastantuono and Alejandro Garnacho have been left at home. The message is clear: one more dance with the old guard.

Burnout risk in the engine room

Age is one concern. Mileage is another.

This group has barely stopped. After winning the Copa America again in 2024, 11 of these players went straight into last summer’s Club World Cup. For some, that made three seasons stitched together almost without a break.

Since the start of the 2024-25 campaign, Enzo Fernández and Julián Álvarez have each played 121 games for club and country. That is an astonishing load for any player, let alone two whose games rely on constant movement. Álvarez limped through the end of Atlético Madrid’s season with an ankle problem. Fernández, just 25 and in prime physical shape, has covered so many miles that fatigue feels less like a possibility and more like an inevitability waiting for its moment.

Alexis Mac Allister offers the clearest warning sign. He did not even go to the Club World Cup, yet the Liverpool midfielder has still racked up 119 appearances for club and country across the last two seasons. He is expected to start Argentina’s opener against Algeria at Arrowhead Stadium on Tuesday, but his Premier League form over the past nine months has dipped sharply.

Former Liverpool winger Jermaine Pennant did not hold back when he spoke to TalkSport after criticising Mac Allister on social media during Liverpool’s defeat to Manchester City in February.

"I was watching the game and I was frustrated and I tweeted… I was angry. It was constructive angry… I touched on that, ‘after your injury in pre-season, you’ve come back a shadow of what you are; it seems like your legs have gone’. In that [City] game, he was literally a bystander, he didn’t really get into it at all and that’s what I touched on, it was an observation."

The numbers in Mac Allister’s legs back up the eye test. Scaloni will almost certainly start him. He may not be able to persevere with him for long if the tempo of Argentina’s midfield drops.

Loyalty vs evolution

Scaloni, though, is not blinking. He is set to lean again on the core that has never failed him on the big stage.

Seven of the starters from the 2022 final are expected to be in the XI against Algeria. That figure would likely have reached 10 had Álvarez, Nicolás Tagliafico and Nahuel Molina not arrived with minor injuries.

Cristian Romero, Otamendi, Fernández, De Paul, Mac Allister and Messi are all set to reprise their roles. Lautaro Martínez, Golden Boot winner at the 2024 Copa America, will step in for Álvarez up front. This is a team that knows how to win, knows how to suffer, knows how to manage the chaos of tournament football.

But does Scaloni dare to gamble on youth if Argentina are to go deep again?

His selections at full-back suggest the answer, for now, is no.

With Tagliafico ruled out, the obvious call at left-back is Barco, the left-sided Strasbourg player who has impressed in recent friendlies. He has scored in two of Argentina’s last three games, usually from a more advanced role, yet he is a left-back by trade. At 21, his energy and ambition would inject badly needed dynamism down a flank that risks becoming conservative and predictable.

Instead, Scaloni is ready to hand the job to Lisandro Martínez. The Manchester United defender is a natural centre-back, more secure defensively, more disciplined in one-v-one duels. He is also far less likely to surge forward, overlap and stretch a defence. Against Algeria’s veteran talisman Riyad Mahrez, Scaloni has chosen caution.

On the opposite side, Simeone is set for a baptism of fire. With Molina and Gonzalo Montiel still building fitness after injuries, the 21-year-old is expected to fill in at right-back until one of the specialists is ready for more than a cameo. It is a bold positional switch for a player not raised in that role, and a reminder that Argentina’s depth is not as evenly spread as their trophy cabinet suggests.

The Nico Paz question

The most intriguing fault line between old and new lies in midfield, and in the boots of Nico Paz.

At 21, Paz has lit up Italian football with Como over the last two seasons. Under the guidance of Cesc Fàbregas, he scored 13 goals and added seven assists this past campaign, driving a newly promoted side to fourth place and Champions League qualification. Serie A named him Best Midfielder at their end-of-season awards. Real Madrid are widely expected to trigger the buy-back clause in his contract.

Paz plays with a freedom Argentina’s midfield has occasionally lacked. He sees passes early, accepts risk in possession and drives at opponents rather than simply recycling the ball. Compared with the more laboured, safety-first performances Mac Allister has produced recently, the contrast is stark.

A minor knee issue means Paz is likely to start this World Cup on the bench. But if Argentina labour through the lines or struggle to break teams down, Scaloni will be under pressure to turn to him. He has done it before: dropping a then-21-year-old Enzo Fernández into the XI midway through the group stage in Qatar changed the entire trajectory of that tournament.

That decision defined Scaloni as a coach willing to make a ruthless call when the moment demanded it. This World Cup may ask the same of him again.

A brutal path and one last duel?

The draw gives Argentina little margin for error.

Win Group J — where they face Algeria, Austria and Jordan — and the Albiceleste are likely to meet the runners-up from Group H in the round of 32, potentially Spain, more probably Uruguay. Negotiate that, and a winnable last-16 tie looms against the runners-up from Group D (currently Australia) or Group G (likely one of Belgium, Egypt or Iran).

From there, the difficulty spikes. If seedings hold, Portugal wait in the quarter-finals. Messi against Cristiano Ronaldo. One last meeting on the biggest stage, almost certainly the final World Cup for both.

By then, Scaloni cannot still be searching for answers. He will need a settled side, fresh legs in key zones and a balance between those who built this era and those who must carry it forward.

He has stayed loyal to a core that has given him everything. To make it four trophies from four major tournaments, he may have to betray that loyalty in the most ruthless way of all — by trusting the future to protect the past, and to give Messi the farewell he deserves.