Argentina-Paraguay for the Under 23 Football Pre-Olympic: what time does it play, how and where to see Mascherano’s national team

He Selected Subsection 23 what a guide Javier Mascherano he wants to aim for the third… the third gold medal in the next one Olympic Games which will take place this year Paris. To achieve this objective it is necessary to first obtain one of the two places granted by the University South American pre-Olympic tournament which develops into Venezuela and this starts on Sunday afternoon.

Argentina is seeded in Group B and will debut first at 8 p.m Paraguay, a match which a few hours before the start also added TyC as an alternative to the DirecTV Sports broadcast. The adaptation of public TV prevented the acquisition of rights and the satellite signal was left with exclusivity.

The meeting will take place at the Misael Delgado Sports Center, in the city of Valencia, 125 kilometers from Caracas. The referee will be the Brazilian Flavio de Souzaassisted by his compatriots Nailton Sousa and Luanderson Lima.

Group B is completed with Peru, Chile and Uruguay, which will be coached by Marcelo Bielsa. Only the top two will advance to the final quadrangular, which will award two tickets to Paris for the champion and runner-up of the competition.

Argentina, two-time Olympic champion for gold medals of Athens 2004 AND Beijing 2008will look for the Paris 2024 and for this reason he has an immediate goal: to try to win his sixth title in a Pre-Olympic. With seven, Brazil is the first winner, while the Albiceleste achieved it in Peru 1960 and 1964, Colombia 1980 and 2020 and Chile 2004.

Mascherano does not arrive with the full squad: transfer of the defender Giuliano Malatini to the Werder Bremen German and the new club’s refusal to sell him, the squad will have one player less than the others. This situation constitutes an advantage, since the competition will have matches every three days and coaches They will apply more rotation than usual.

The transfer of the former Defensa y Justicia was made after the presentation of the official list of the South American tournament, the Bundesliga club refused to sell him and the AFA could not replace him as this possibility is only taken into consideration in case of injury.

Mascherano’s opportunity

The situation in which Mascherano settles is particular. The former captain of the world second team in Brazil 2014 and two-time Olympic champion has suffered two difficult setbacks as coach of the Under-20 team.

Argentina was excluded from the South American finals in Colombia 2023, but also entered the World Cup category when Argentina replaced Indonesia. In the top competition, however, they failed to progress past the round of 16 after losing to Nigeria in San Juan.

After these disappointing performances, the coach resigned from the position of youth coach, but at the request of Claudio Tapia (president of the AFA), Lionel Scaloni (senior team coach) and Bernardo Romeo (youth team coordinator) he agreed to continue in the position. .

It is clear that the “Jefecito” stakes a lot of its future in this tournament, given that outside of Paris 2024, a competition that could include Lionel Messi and Ángel Di María as senior players of the team, would be a very difficult shot to assimilate.

The Argentine team has played many preparatory friendlies (Japan, Ecuador, Venezuela, Lanús, Central Córdoba de Santiago del Quiero and Comunicaciones), is taking shape and style and is made up of players from the local environment, with the exception of the Atletico Paranaense defender Lucas Esquivel, the winger recently transferred to English Brighton Valentín Barco and the Atlanta United striker Thiago Almada, world champion in Qatar 2022.

The Under 23 figures are Claudio “Diablito” Echeverri, who replaced the injured Pedro De la Vega, Almada, Barco, Nicolás Valentini, Federico Redondo and Luciano Gondou. The team would consist of: Leandro Brey; Joaquín García, Marco Di Césare, Nicolás Valentini and Valentín Barco; Cristian Medina, Juan Sforza and Ezequiel Fernández; Pablo Solari, Luciano Gondou and Thiago Almada.

Paraguay has 23

Led by Carlos Jara Saguier, Paraguay concluded their preparation with a friendly defeat against Uruguay 4-1 at the Maldonado Campus, but their history speaks of a football of great strength, physical opulence and good aerial play.

Standing out in the Guaraní team are midfielders Diego Gómez (Inter Miami of the MLS), Enso González (English Wolverhampton) and three players who play in Argentina: Iván Leguizamón (San Lorenzo), Juan José Cardozo (Argentinos Juniors) and Marcelo Pérez (Huracán).

The 11 against Argentina would be: Ángel González; Alan Núñez, Ronaldo Dejesús, Gilberto Flores and Daniel Rivas; Fabrizio Peralta and Wilder Viera; Ivan Leguizamón, Enso González and Marcelo Fernández; Marcelo Perez. DT: Carlos Jara Saguier.