Argentina's World Cup Journey: A Golden Generation Facing Challenges
Argentina arrive in Kansas City carrying more than luggage. They’ve brought a dynasty.
Seventeen of the 26 players who conquered the world in Qatar are here again, the same core that has powered Lionel Scaloni’s astonishing run of trophies. Ten of the eleven who started the 2022 World Cup final against France are still in the squad; only Ángel Di María, now retired after bowing out as Player of the Match in the 2024 Copa America final, is missing from that iconic XI.
In an era of constant churn, this is near-defiance. Sixteen members of this group were also part of the 2021 Copa America triumph, Scaloni’s first title. Compare that with Brazil, who have retained just 11 players from their squad five years ago, three of them goalkeepers. England, from their Euro 2021 finalists, have kept only nine. Argentina have chosen continuity as a weapon.
But continuity ages.
A golden generation, creaking at the edges
The bond within this Argentina squad has been built over half a decade of shared camps, shared scars, shared medals. Players talk about a brotherhood; you can see it in the way they celebrate, argue with referees, suffer together. That emotional cohesion has been a competitive edge.
Now the calendar is fighting back.
Nine players are on the wrong side of 30. That list includes pillars: Emiliano Martínez, Rodrigo De Paul and, of course, Lionel Messi, who will turn 39 during what will be a record sixth World Cup.
At the other end of the age spectrum, the pipeline looks thin. Only three players – Giuliano Simeone, Valentín Barco and Nico Paz – are under 25. Franco Mastantuono and Alejandro Garnacho did not make the cut. The squad’s average age sits north of 29, and that number carries a story: miles in the legs, muscle memory… and fatigue.
Scaloni’s group has barely had time to breathe. The 2024 Copa America came in the middle of a brutal club cycle. Eleven of these players then went to the Club World Cup last summer. For some, the last three seasons have blended into one long, unbroken grind.
Since the start of the 2024-25 campaign, Enzo Fernández and Julián Álvarez have each played 121 games for club and country. One hundred and twenty-one. Álvarez ended Atletico Madrid’s season being carefully managed through an ankle issue. Fernández, at 25, remains in peak condition, but no one can outrun that kind of schedule forever.
Alexis Mac Allister is already showing the strain. He did not go to the Club World Cup, yet he has still racked up 119 appearances for Liverpool and Argentina over the past two seasons. His form in the Premier League over the last nine months has dipped sharply, and that drop-off is impossible to separate from the workload.
Jermaine Pennant put it bluntly on TalkSport after Liverpool’s defeat to Manchester City in February, having already criticised Mac Allister on social media.
“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."
Yet Mac Allister is still expected to start Argentina’s World Cup opener against Algeria at Arrowhead Stadium on Tuesday. Scaloni will trust him – at least to begin with. But this time, the leash might be shorter.
Scaloni’s loyalty vs the ticking clock
The pattern is familiar. When the stakes rise, Scaloni leans on the men who have never failed him on the biggest stages.
Seven of the starters from the 2022 final are set to be in the XI again against Algeria, and that number would likely have been 10 had Álvarez, Nicolás Tagliafico and Nahuel Molina not arrived nursing minor injuries. Cristian Romero, Nicolás Otamendi, Fernández, De Paul, Mac Allister and Messi are all poised to reprise their roles. Lautaro Martínez, fresh from winning the 2024 Copa America Golden Boot, will step in for Álvarez up front.
This is a team that knows how to win. It also knows how to suffer its way through tight knockout ties. But can it still run?
The question hangs over almost every selection call. Scaloni’s conservative streak is visible in the choice at left-back. With Tagliafico out, the obvious option would be to unleash Barco after his lively recent friendlies.
The left-sided Strasbourg player, widely tipped to join Chelsea this summer, has scored in two of Argentina’s last three games, operating slightly higher up the pitch. By trade, though, he is a left-back, and at 21 he brings a burst of energy this ageing side badly needs down one flank.
Scaloni is set to go another way. Lisandro Martínez, the Manchester United defender, is expected to start there and take on the job of shackling Algeria’s veteran talisman Riyad Mahrez. Martínez offers defensive security and aggression in duels, but his centre-back instincts mean he is unlikely to bomb forward with the same abandon as Barco. One choice tilts towards control, the other towards dynamism. Scaloni has nailed his colours to the safer mast.
On the right, he is improvising. Simeone is set to start at right-back, a role he does not know intimately. With Molina and Gonzalo Montiel still working back to full fitness, Simeone will plug the gap until at least one of the specialists can play more than a few minutes.
It’s a patchwork solution, not a revolution.
The Paz question
The real flashpoint in this quiet changing of the guard is Nico Paz.
At 21, he has lit up Serie A with Como over the past two seasons, thriving under the guidance of Cesc Fàbregas. This past campaign he delivered 13 goals and seven assists, dragging a club promoted in 2024 all the way to fourth place and Champions League qualification. The league recognised his impact: Paz was named Best Midfielder at Serie A’s end-of-season awards. Real Madrid are widely expected to trigger the buy-back clause in his contract this summer.
His profile is exactly what this Argentina midfield lacks when it looks tired: an eye for the killer pass, the courage to risk possession in tight spaces, a restless, youthful energy. Set that against the laboured displays Mac Allister has produced recently and the contrast is stark.
Yet Paz will likely begin this World Cup on the bench. A minor knee problem has not helped his case, but this is also about hierarchy. Scaloni trusts the old guard. They have earned that trust.
He has, though, shown he can rip up his own script when the tournament demands it. In Qatar, he promoted a then-21-year-old Fernández into the starting line-up midway through the group stage, a decision that changed the course of Argentina’s World Cup. If the rhythm is off this time, if the legs in midfield look heavy again, Paz is the obvious card to play.
The question is not whether Scaloni will use him. It is whether he will do it early enough.
A brutal road, and one last dance
Argentina’s route, on paper, offers a gentle incline before the climb turns steep.
Win Group J ahead of Algeria, Austria and Jordan and the Albiceleste would meet the runners-up from Group H in the round of 32 – potentially Spain, more likely Uruguay. Negotiate that, and a last-16 tie against the runners-up from Group D (currently Australia) or Group G (potentially Belgium, Egypt or Iran) looks manageable.
Then the temperature changes.
If seedings hold, Portugal await in the quarter-finals. Messi vs Cristiano Ronaldo. One last collision between the two defining figures of their era, almost certainly at their final World Cup. By that stage there will be no room for sentiment. Scaloni will have to know, not guess, his best XI.
He has built this empire on loyalty, on repetition, on the belief that the men who delivered three straight major titles can deliver a fourth. But the World Cup is merciless with teams that cling to the past a beat too long.
Somewhere between Kansas City and a possible date with Portugal, he will have to decide: ride the old guard until the wheels come off, or bleed in Barco, Paz and the next generation while there is still time to shape Messi’s farewell on his own terms.
