Mystery De Paul: Without any signs of serious injury, he worked alongside his team-mates before the match against the Netherlands

the health of Rodrigo De Paul It became the only topic of discussion after this Thursday’s training session of the Argentina national team before the duel against the Netherlands. Especially after the annoyance that Lionel Scaloni has shown for leaks to the press on internal campus issues. And the question remains: will the midfielder be able to play this Friday, starting at 4pm, at the Lusail stadium in search of a place in the semifinals? The mystery still stands.

The quick answer, at least from what we saw in the 15 minutes of training open to the press, is that De Paul worked with the same intensity as the rest of his teammates. The same happened with Ángel Di María, who missed the match against Australia due to an overload in his left quadriceps.

De Paul’s physical attitude belies the most extreme versions that spoke in the last few hours of a grade I tear in the right hamstring. This information cannot be verified by clarion, who was able to discover that the Atlético de Madrid footballer had suffered a muscle overload in that area and that, for this reason, he had not attended football training on Thursday. For this, perhaps, this Friday he wore a leg guard on his right leg which at times peeped out from under his trousers ..

As soon as he came out of the locker room, the former Racing started jogging while his teammates played to keep the ball from falling to the ground. De Paul joined the group and used both legs without too much difficulty.

Once training formally began, the midfielder, who with 49 caps is the most capped player of the Scaloni era, completed his passing routine with all his team-mates. At first it was some light activation movements and later they increased the intensity by incorporating ball exercises.

The training then continued with the usual extravaganza which involved all the field players standing on the perimeter of the central circle. Three have to recover the ball while the others have to unload first. As fate would have it, just before FIFA officials began running away from reporters, De Paul and Di María looked “crazy” and both spared no energy to recover the ball.

This time there was no time to see how Scaloni distributed the bibs. Nor is it known at the moment whether De Paul and Di María participated in the tactical exercise in which the starters usually define themselves. On Wednesday, the DT had stopped a team with Leandro Paredes in place of De Paul and with changes in the two side scorers with respect to the duel against Australia: Gonzalo Montiel and Nicolás Tagliafico inside and Nahuel Molina and Marcos Acuña outside.

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