Five options and a surprise: Scaloni seeks Balerdi cover elsewhere | OneFootball

Argentina head coach Lionel Scaloni confirmed this Monday at a press conference that, after this Tuesday’s friendly against Iceland, starting Wednesday the player who will complete the 26-man World Cup squad will join the team and take the place of Leonardo Balerdi, who was ruled out after tearing the soleus muscle in his right leg. The big news is that the coach revealed that the center-back position is already covered and that he will bring in a player from another area of the field.

The players still in the running to make the World Cup squad are: Emiliano Buendía, Nicolás Capaldo, Agustín Giay, Máximo Perrone, and Guido Rodríguez. All of them were included in the preliminary list of 55 that the coach originally drew up and have been part of the cycle at different times, with more or less continuity. According to TyC Sports, the chosen player will be announced on Tuesday before the friendly.

“I’m not going to say it immediately after the match, but tomorrow we’ll have a clearer picture. We can take these days, and on Wednesday, whoever we decide on will be with us. In the skinny guy’s position we may already be covered, and we’ll look at other possibilities depending on how the other teammates finish up. We have an idea based on how they end up. Tomorrow we’ll decide, but it won’t go beyond Wednesday,” Scaloni said this Monday.

The truth is that the back line is covered with Cristian Romero, Nicolás Otamendi, Lisandro Martínez, and Facundo Medina, who is naturally a center-back, although Scaloni also brings him as an alternative to Nicolás Tagliafico because at Olympique de Marseille he plays as a stopper. So far, Giay and Capaldo seemed the most likely options. Both right-backs are with the squad for the friendlies, but both were called up because of injuries to Gonzalo Montiel and Nahuel Molina.

Scaloni analyzed the situation of the injured players and confirmed that Paredes is improving

However, both players trained alongside the squad for the first time on Sunday, and today the coach announced that they have been medically cleared, so their recoveries have gone well and, unless one of them drops out, it would be strange for him to add a third right-back, unless he plans to use one of them on the left.

As for the others, Rodríguez, who is in good form at Valencia, has not played for Argentina since 2024, but he was a regular at the start of this cycle: he won both Copa América titles and was one of the world champions. With Leandro Paredes carrying a knock (Scaloni said he will rejoin his teammates at the end of the week after the muscle tear he suffered against Universidad Católica), bringing a holding midfielder who can replace him in the middle of midfield would be an option. In the friendly against Honduras, Scaloni had to use Exequiel Palacios in that role. One option is Perrone, Nicolás Paz’s teammate at surprise Serie A side Como, where he was one of the standout players. He has two appearances for Argentina and was called up for the March friendlies against Mauritania and Zambia.

Otherwise, though with a much more attacking profile, Buendía appears as an option after a great season at Aston Villa, where he scored 11 goals in 54 matches. The 29-year-old from Mar del Plata has two caps for the national team, and his last appearance was in November, but he was one of the cases that caused some surprise when he was left out of the 26-man squad because of the level he showed in the Premier League. He is coming off winning the Europa League, and last week, when Nico Paz’s presence was in doubt, the national team contacted him to let him know he should train and stay ready.

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