World Cup in Qatar: Argentina already know which shirt they will wear in their debut against Saudi Arabia and for the rest of the group stage

A few hours before the start of the Qatar 2022 World Cup, FIFA announced the clothing that the teams playing in the group stage will have to wear, a fact that is very popular, especially by the most cabaleros, always attentive to these color issues and statistics

The national team will play against Saudi Arabia on Tuesday 22nd and for that first match they will have to wear the historic blue-and-whites. After the defeat against Cameroon in 1990, from ’94 to here Argentina always won on their debut at the World Cup, except for Russia 2018. And yes, that afternoon of bad omens against Iceland, in which they drew 1-1 and Messi missed a penalty, those led by Sampaoli had the… alternative shirt.

On Saturday 26th, against Mexico, he will also wear the biancoceleste shirt and the alternative will end up taking the field on Wednesday 30th, against Poland, with the hope that the national team has already set its qualification for the round of 16.

Clothing, match after match

How do rivals arrive?

Poland was the only one of the three rivals that Argentina will have in Group C of the World Cup in Qatar to have won the last friendly before their debut in the tournament, while Gerardo Martino’s Mexico lost against Sweden and the same what happened with the opponent .debut, Saudi Arabia, against the second in the world, Croatia.

But of all the friendlies played by the members of this Zone C which will open next Tuesday the 22nd with the matches between Argentina-Saudi Arabia and Poland-Mexico, the one that stood out the most was precisely the team led by Lionel Scaloni, who was beaten 5-0 against the United Arab Emirates of the Argentine coach Rodolfo Arruabarrena, in Abu Dhabi.

The day was closed by the Mexican national team, which Argentina will face on Saturday 26 at the Lusail stadium, for the second round of group C, and fell 2-1 against their Swedish counterpart on Wednesday, in a friendly that took place in Girona , Spain, before traveling to Doha.

The age-old problems that the “Tata” team has once again revealed themselves, have to do with their lack of strength in specifying all the situations available to them based on the elegant and clean game they propose, a characteristic that the L’ Argentine coach impresses all his coaches.

With Mexico’s star figure, Javier “Chicharito” Hernández out of the 26 players due to Martino’s decision over a disciplinary issue, the registered return of Raúl Jiménez after a 77-day injury absence, the refuges they hope that this drawback can be fixed already at full competition.

Mexico had a good first half, in which the Swedes dominated and was fluid, but in the second half their rival struggled for possession and took the lead before 10 minutes through Marcus Rohdén.

But less than five minutes later, the experienced Andrés Guardado, who with this match reached the record of 178 official appearances for his team and is the one with the most appearances in history, kicked off the action that was widened to Alexis Vega, who handed a through ball to Héctor Herrera so that he could equalize with a low, cornered shot.

But just over five minutes before the end, Mattias Svanberg appeared in the Mexico box to take advantage of a rebound after a corner kick and seal the Swedish victory.

With that bittersweet taste between performance and result, Martino’s team went to Qatar, where they will make their debut next Tuesday the 22nd against Poland, in a potential crossover between the two top candidates to “a priori” accompany Argentina, from group C , directed to the round of 16.

And Argentina’s former rivals Saudi Arabia also lost, in this case 1-0 to Group F members Croatia. Striker Andrej Kramaric converted the winning goal of the current world runners-up to eight minutes from the end of the match played at Prince Faisal Bin Fahd Stadium in Riyadh.

In front of a small audience, the team led by the French Hervé Renard greeted their fans with the first defeat of the preparation, which began at the end of October in the United Arab Emirates.

Previously, the “Green Hawks” had recorded the following results: 1-0 against North Macedonia; 1-1 against Albania; 0-0 with Honduras; 1-0 over Iceland; and 1-1 against Panama.

In Saudi Arabia, captain Salman Alfaraj, who had suffered a shoulder injury, and striker Saleh Alshehri, who also had a muscle problem, were the starters. Luka Modric, captain and figure of the Balkans, went on to the bench and came on to play for the last 25 minutes. The albirrojos will make their debut with Morocco on Wednesday the 23rd.

The Polish football team, Argentina’s third rival on Wednesday 30, beat Chile, which will not go to the ecumenical tournament, 1-0 in Warsaw, in the last friendly before the World Cup, with a goal by Krzysztof Piatek against the 40 minutes of the second half.

Saudi Arabia, Mexico and Poland, in this order, will be the rivals of the team led by Lionel Messi towards the round of 16, which, if they win the group, will see them challenge immediately, on Saturday 3 July, against the second from the Zone C, whose top two candidates to qualify for that instance are world champions, France and Denmark.