Argentina boss Scaloni hints at Messi comeback; Pochettino ‘happy’ with USMNT in Germany loss | OneFootball

June 7 (Reuters) -Lionel Scaloni has raised hopes that Lionel Messi could feature in Argentina’s upcoming friendlies, but confirmed the star forward would not be risked as the world champions fine-tune their World Cup preparations.

Speaking at a pre-match press conference on Friday (June 5), Scaloni said Messi had begun training partially with the group — a significant step in his recovery — but that the coaching staff would not take any chances with their talisman so close to the tournament.

“Leo is coming along well. He’s already trained partially with the group, which is important. He’s no longer completely separated,” Scaloni told reporters.

The Argentina coach left the door open for Messi to feature in one of the scheduled friendlies.

“It’s even possible that he could be part of one of the matches, some minutes in these two friendlies — but he’s much better and that gives us peace of mind,” he said.

Scaloni added that several other players were also being carefully managed, stressing that availability for the World Cup itself remained the overriding priority.

“Logically we don’t want to risk them in these matches,” he said.

Elsehwere, the United States were dealt a 2-1 defeat by Germany in their final warm-up friendly ahead of the World Cup, but head coach Mauricio Pochettino said he was impressed by the character shown by his side.

Kai Havertz headed in Joshua Kimmich’s free kick to give four-times world champions Germany a second-minute lead, but World Cup co-hosts United States snatched a stunning equaliser through Antonee Robinson.

Leroy Sane then scored in the 57th minute to seal Germany’s victory at Soldier Field in Chicago.

“Overall, I think it was a good performance. I am happy with the performance of everyone. We play one of the most important teams in the world,” Pochettino told reporters.

“I think we need to be happy with that. We compete, (we were) unlucky, I think it was as an even game… It was an amazing challenge for us to see how we react, how we show character, how we show togetherness, how we start to play under pressure.”

The U.S. open their Group D campaign against Paraguay on June 12 at SoFi Stadium near Los Angeles.

“We were demanding a lot to the player(s) in the last two weeks. I’ve seen (us) overload the player(s) and the team,” the Argentine manager said.

“Now (we have) to assess the load and be intelligent in the way that we are going to arrive to the Paraguay (game), in the best condition, fresh with energy.”