As well as an average age of over 29, there are also worries about just how much gas some of Scaloni’s key players have in the tank after a relentless few years. As well as the Copa America in 2024, 11 of his players then took part in last summer’s Club World Cup, meaning for some, the last three seasons have been non-stop.
Since the start of the 2024-25 season, key midfielder Enzo Fernandez and star striker Julian Alvarez have played 121 games each for club and country. Perhaps it shouldn’t come as a surprise, then, that Alvarez had to be nursed through the final weeks of Atletico Madrid’s season while he dealt with an ankle problem, and it would be a shock if the miles Fernandez has covered didn’t catch up with him at some stage, despite him being in prime physical shape at 25.
Certainly the amount of miles in Alexis Mac Allister’s legs seem to have played a part in his dramatic drop in form. Despite not being at the Club World Cup, the Liverpool midfielder has still managed to rack up 119 appearances for club and country over the past two seasons, and is expected to start Argentina’s opening match against Algeria on Tuesday. But if his performances in the Premier League over the past nine months are anything to go by, he will surely be on a short leash before Scaloni will be forced to act.
Speaking to TalkSport after he criticised Mac Allister on social media during Liverpool’s loss to Manchester City in February, ex-Reds winger Jermaine Pennant said: “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.”
