Argentina face Switzerland again, Brazil 2014 still raw | OneFootball

At the very moment when Rubén Vargas converted the penalty kick that sealed Switzerland’s qualification against Colombia and confirmed that the Swiss side will be the next opponent of the Argentina National Team, digital platforms were flooded with clips recalling the match played on July 1, 2014, in São Paulo. On that occasion, the albiceleste side earned a hard-fought 1-0 victory in extra time in the round of 16 thanks to a dramatic finish from Ángel Di María. Until not long ago, that clash ranked among the most dramatic and nerve-racking for Argentine fans so far in the 21st century.

Later, the World Cup in Qatar pushed aside those old ghosts with last-gasp finishes of its own, although the recent matches against Cape Verde and Egypt in this tournament seem to have carried over the heart-stopping pace of the last World Cup. The shared hope of the fans ahead of this Saturday’s clash at 10:00 p.m. at the Kansas City venue is to avoid a match unfolding with the same level of anguish experienced at the Arena do Corinthians or in the previous games of this current edition.

During that sunny Tuesday midday at the brand-new stadium in São Paulo, unveiled just weeks before the start of the World Cup in Brazil, Argentina and Switzerland played out a perfectly even contest. Alejandro Sabella’s team had come through the opening stage by taking all nine points available, although each match required a high dose of tension: a 2-1 win over Bosnia in the opener, a last-minute 1-0 victory over Iran through a moment of brilliance from Lionel Messi, and a narrow 3-2 result against Nigeria. As for the Europeans, they advanced to the knockout stage after finishing behind France in a group also made up of Honduras and Ecuador.

The then Argentina head coach sent out the following lineup at the start of the match: Sergio Romero; Pablo Zabaleta, Federico Fernández, Ezequiel Garay, Marcos Rojo; Javier Mascherano, Fernando Gago; Ezequiel Lavezzi, Lionel Messi, Ángel Di María and Gonzalo Higuaín.

Meanwhile, the team coached by Ottmar Hitzfeld boasted a fearsome attacking combination down the right flank led by Stephan Lichtsteiner, then a standout at Juventus in Italy, and Xherdan Shaqiri, who at that time was part of Bayern Munich. The Swiss squad also featured Granit Xhaka and Ricardo Rodríguez, two long-serving players who are expected to be in the starting lineup this coming Saturday, more than a decade after that meeting.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇪🇸 here.