Copa America 19: An uphill task for Argentina

Football world is all set for it's continental festival. Copa America and Uefa Nations League is around the corner. Both the events are scheduled one after the other. Uefa Nations League being the inaugural edition has already completed it's group stages and Quarters. The Semi final and Finals will end before Copa America 19.

Copa America 19 is scheduled to begin on 14 June 2019

Uefa Nations League Final is on 10 June 2019

Millions of fans are excited to watch their favorite stars playing in their national colours. With just few days remaining for the event, preparations of football teams are going in full swing.

Copa America 19 will be the center of attraction for all the football fans. Many big names in club football have been called for their national duties.
Neymar, Suarez ,James Rodriguez, Messi, Vidal are some major stars who will be playing in the Copa America 19. Every team participating in the event have sent their 23 man squad for the tournament. 12 teams are divided into 3 groups.Qatar and Japan are the invited to play the tournament. Japan is playing in tournament after 10 years. While Qatar will be the first Arab country to participate in the Copa America.

So the question is will Argentina win this edition of Copa America or will have to wait!!

1.Argentina and the "series of losing Finals":

The Argentinian national team has become a joke to the football world in recent years.The   nation were football legends like ,Kempes and Maradona were born have faced one of the longest trophy drought. The team has not a won a major international trophy since 1993. They have lost 4 Copa finals since then. Two times against
Brazil in 2004 and 2007. Two times against Chile in 2015 and 2016. The surprising fact is that they lost 3 finals in a row : WC2014, Copa 15, Copa 16.

They have changed 4 managers in 3 years. The entry of Argentina into WC18 was a very difficult task. After getting into WC18 somehow they still found it difficult to survive in group stages. They managed to enter the 2nd round of the competition. But it didn't end well, the eventual winners France sent Argentina out of the WC. Being an Argentinian fan for last 18 years were the most difficult thing. There was only disappointment for everyone who supported the team. The fans believe this year they will win the coveted trophy.

2. Lack of team chemistry in the Argentinian team.

In last 3-4 years the team has more become Messi dependent. It seems like every coaches brought in to action has only one plan. Take the ball pass it to Messi. He will do some magic!!
This plan has worked some times. This shows lack of team chemistry.
But when it fails the whole team suffers badly. The players have to play more like a team if they want to win. The team has almost changed in the recent years. Messi has not played a match with the main team since many months. So we have to wait to see how will the chemistry work. The only Formula to win is play every match as a final.

3. Depth in Argentine squad

The team has some major prospects. With Tagliafico becoming major part in Ajax European glory has made his name known to the world. The next name in the list is Lo celso who had a quite wonderful season at real betis. Became the talking point in the match between Barcelona and betis. They defeated Barca at their home. Lo celso outplayed the barca midfield completely. Some other names are juan foyth from Tottenham , Paredes from PSG, Pereryra from Watford. Barca was always had the best attack, good defence and an ok defence in the recent years. Let's see if anything different happen in this tournament.

4. Players left out from the squad.

There has been some major names left out of the 23 man squad.
Mauro Icardi :  As always, he has been left out. Even after a good season at Inter Milan his team mate was selected but not him. There lies some major conspiracy behind this for sure
Gonzalo higuain: Not much surprise as he has retired earlier this year
M Lanzini: One of the best playmakers, the reason is not yet clear about his ruling out.
Some other names are Sergio Romero, Marcus Rojo, Ever Banega , F.Fazio, Javier pastore and Erik Lamela.

5. International trophy: Dream of Messi and his million supporters.

Every football fan wants to see Messi lifting a major international trophy. In recent years so called football pundits have added one more criteria for a player to be called goat aka greatest of all times. Many Fans claim that Messi is not the goat because he could not win a major international trophy. Messi's relation with Argentine fans have not gone well. Many of them term messi as a failure because he could not bring major international honour to his country. Messi even retired after the Copa 16 but many fans around the globe didn't want him to leave. Hence he came back and bought the team out of early eliminations from the WC. He did a mass heroic of scoring a hattrick against Ecuador after going down 1-0 at the early minutes of the match. Messi have become more sharp with age. He is currently the highest European goalscorer in top 5 leagues. Champions league topscorer, laliga topscorer, top assister,etc. If he is lifting the Copa 19 trophy there is no stopping him from 6th balon door. It might be not his last chance as there is another Copa America tournament in 2020. Messi will be the center of Copa America tournament.

Weighing the resources that Argentina have, Argentina can win this edition of Copa America. Some other team who could spoil Argentina's dream are Brazil, Uruguay, Columbia,Chile and Japan also have an outside chance. Argentina players should find out what went wrong in their previous defeats. They should not repeat those mistakes again.

Every Argentine fan believe that their team is capable of lifting the Copa trophy. The players have to stand up to the legacy left by Kempes and Maradona. It is for sure that Messi will play his best. The question is whether his teammates will do their jobs to the fullest.Let's wait and watch ,whether Argentina could break the curse or not!!

         
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