Sub 20 South American: young blood to feed the future of the world champion team

Argentina are world champions and a whole country is happy. The reception received from the players has been eloquent, a popular demonstration never seen before. The lack of a coherent project from the youth teams up to the arrival of Fernando Batista and the early elimination at the World Cup in Russia has raised questions about the future of the national team as a world power. But now there is a present and also a future with young blood preparing to make the world champions stronger.

The youth project began to take shape with the arrival of the brother of Checho Batista, world champion in 1986, and continued with the arrival of the generation formed under the protective wing of José Pekerman. In 2017 Lionel Scaloni, Pablo Aimar, Diego Placente, Walter Samuel and Bernardo Romeo join. Mascherano joined this structure in 2021, first as head of the AFA’s Methodology and Development Department and this year as Sub 20 coach.

The next Albiceleste challenge will be for the team leading the little boss. Between January 19 and February 12 he will participate in the South American championship which will be held in Cali and Bogota, Colombia. The tournament will be played in two zones and there is Argentina “group of death”, with the hosts and Brazil, as well as Paraguay and Peru. The first three of each group will qualify for the final hexagon, which will assign four places to the turkey world cupwhich will be played between 21 June and 13 July.

27 days before the start of the tournament, Mascherano already has a provisional list of 27 players, 26 from the local media, to tackle the last phase of the works. But he worked all year and completed a series of 12 matches, 9 friendlies and three official ones.

Mascherano made his under-20 coaching debut on 26 March 2022 in a friendly match against the United States under-20 played at AFA Stadium and finished 2-2. After 9 friendlies, of which 7 won, 1 drawn and 1 lost (2-6 against France Sub 20), they faced their first official tournament, the Odesur Games which took place in Paraguay in October. They failed to make it past the first stage, losing to Chile (0-1) and Colombia (0-2) and saying goodbye with a 3-0 win against Ecuador.

In the new squad list, made on December 7, 12 of the 18 players who participated in Odesur were repeated. Another 15 joined. The 27 had a first week of work from Monday 12 to Wednesday 14. Vélez is the club that contributed the most, five players, three starters: Maximo Perrone, Valentin Gomez and Mateo Seoane, also Santiago Castro and Julián Fernández. The only one from the outside is Benjamin Cremaschi, born in the United States but from Argentinian parents (ex Puma Pablo Cresmaschi and Jimena Lara, an important hockey player) and plays for Inter Miami. He was in Buenos Aires last week, he went to Mendoza where his family comes from, and this Monday the 26th in the afternoon he will show up again in the AFA property together with the rest of the players for another 3 days of work).

The other names, to know them, are: Agustín Giay (San Lorenzo), Nahuel Genez (Boca), Axel Encinas (River), Maximiliano González, Brian Aguilar and Julián Aude (Lanús), Franco Herrera and Brian Aguirre (Newell’s), Tiago Palacios and Maximiliano Álvez (Labs), Facundo Buonanotte, Gino Infantino, Ulises Ciccioli and Alejo Véliz (Centre Back), Francisco Marco (Defender), Francisco Gómez (Running), Ignacio Maestro Puch (Atlético Tucumán), Lucas Besozzi (Córdoba Center Back , Nicolás Vallejo (Independent) and Julián Kadijevic (Communications). Of the 27, only 23 will remain and on 5 January the AFA will have to send the definitive list to Conmebol. The question is whether other players will join, especially from abroad. In Odesur the goalkeeper was Federico Gomes Gerth, from Tigre, the only sparring partner in Qatar. He’s a regular addition to the group next week.

Additionally, there is a roster of players born after January 1, 2003 that Mascherano might add: Alejandro Garnacho, Matías Soulé, Luka Romero, Nicolás Paz and the brothers Franco and Valentín Carboni, who have already collaborated with Scaloni. Are they discarded or will you save them for the World Cup?

The mystery will be solved in early January. The concrete thing is that this group is part of the immediate future of the national team, the “young blood” thinking of the 2024 Copa América and the 2026 World Cup.

The other races of 2023

In addition to the South American and Sub 20 World Championships, the two Sub 17 tournaments will also be played in 2023. The South American will be in Ecuador, between March 30 and April 23 and will qualify for the World Cup in Peru, which will be played between November 10 and December 2. In addition, the South American Sub 15 will be held from November 17th to December 3rd. FIFA does not yet organize the World Cup in that category. For its part, the first FIFA dates will be from March 20 to April 2. It is not yet known whether the South American qualifiers will start at that time.