Argentina named their 26-man squad for the World Cup on Thursday, with Lionel Messi set to lead the defending champions \u200bat the tournament in the United States, Mexico and Canada.<\/p>\n
The \u200c38-year-old Inter Miami forward will play in his sixth World Cup, extending his national record, while Emiliano Martinez, Nicolas Otamendi, Rodrigo De Paul, Alexis Mac Allister, Enzo Fernandez, \u200bJulian Alvarez and Lautaro Martinez are among 17 players returning \u200bfrom the squad that lifted the trophy in Qatar in \u20602022.<\/p>\n
Coach Lionel Scaloni retained the core of the side that won Argentina’s \u200bthird world title, although veteran winger Angel Di Maria was not considered \u200bafter retiring from international football following the 2024 Copa America.<\/p>\n
Midfielder Giovani Lo Celso, who missed the 2022 World Cup through injury, returned for his second finals after being \u200bpart of Argentina’s squad in Russia in 2018 without making an \u200bappearance.<\/p>\n
Argentina also included several younger players expected to lead the team’s next generation, including \u200cValentin Barco, \u2060Nicolas Paz and Giuliano Simeone, while forwards Jose Manuel Lopez and Thiago Almada are among those set for their first World Cup appearances.
\nLocal media reports said left back Marcos Acuna, part of the 2022 title-winning squad, \u200bmissed out because \u200bof fitness concerns.
\nArgentina \u2060will open their Group J campaign against Algeria on June 16 before facing Jordan and Austria.<\/p>\n
–Reuters–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":13680,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-35809","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Argentina \u2060will open their Group J campaign against Algeria on June 16 before facing Jordan and Austria.","published_date":"","news_description":"Argentina \u2060will open their Group J campaign against Algeria on June 16 before facing Jordan and Austria.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/35809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/35809\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35810,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/35809\/revisions\/35810"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=35809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}