With their 3-0 win against Poland, Argentina confirmed their place in the knockout round of the World Cup however it wasn't all smooth sailing.
Argentina started their campaign with a shocking 2-1 loss against Saudi Arabia. Lionel Messi opened the scoring with a penalty before Saudi Arabia scored a quickfire double in the second half to upset one of the favourites for the competition.
However, in that first match and also in the two games since then against Mexico and Poland one thing has been incredibly clear. Argentina are defensively solid and also have a number of talented players on the ball, but what they are missing is someone with a burst of pace.
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In the game against Saudi Arabia, Argentina's opponents deployed an incredibly high line and also consistently utilised an offside trap. This caught Messi and Lautaro Martinez out numerous times as they had to play so close to the last man to get any sort of headstart on the defender if the ball went over the top.
If only they had a player with a burst of pace who could start much further back and still gain an advantage on the defence.
This was Nico Gonzalez, but he was injured in the warm-up to the tournament, but of the options that were available to them, Lionel Scaloni should have picked Manchester United's Alejandro Garnacho.
Now the argument that Garnacho is young and only just adjusting to senior football is a fair one, but he offers something else that no other attacker in Argentina's squad can. His directness would have offered another dimension to their attack.
Garnacho has shown his ability to run in behind and finish one on one both against Real Sociedad in the Europa League and against Fulham in the Premier League for United. This is something that Argentina missed in the group stages and may potentially miss in the knockout stages as well.
Overall it comes back to the phrase of 'if you're good enough you're old enough'; Scaloni was correct to have reservations when selecting his initial squad, but with his back against the wall and injuries mounting selecting the best profile to give his attack balance should have also come into consideration and this is where Garnacho would have thrived.
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