Within the framework of the Argentine National Team’s 1-0 victory over Chile in the Copa América 2024, one of the pearls of the match was the forward’s euphoric celebration Julian Alvarez at the time that Lautaro Martinezwith whom he disputes the position, scored the agonizing goal that qualified the team led by Lionel Scaloni to the quarterfinals.
As in the debut against Canada, the Manchester City attacker started and after an acceptable performance, the ‘Bull’ replaced him 27 minutes into the second half.
At 87 minutes, after a closed corner taken by Lionel Messi at the near post and a series of rebounds in the area, the ball was served to the Inter Italy player so that, with a powerful shot, he sent the ball to the back of the network. The trans-Andean goalkeeper, Claudio Bravo, could do nothing.
As can be seen in a video, the “Araña”, already on the substitute bench, celebrated the goal as if it were his own, an action that was highly praised on social networks by Argentine fans. Even Scaloni himself highlighted the gesture after the meeting in dialogue with the media.
“The happiest for the goal is Lautaro, the second is Julián and the third is me,” said the coach.
Although the technical director recalled that both forwards came to play together with the albiceleste shirt, in the Copa América, until now, there is no place for both at the same time on the playing field.
Regarding future decisions, Scaloni advanced: ” I’m going to put who I think is the right one for each game.“. And he explained: “For a coach it is difficult. I am one of those who thinks that they play 11 and the team has to be balanced. There are moments when it can become unbalanced, because you need to win, but I like a team with structure and it is difficult to maintain it with certain types of players. The debate will be for everything that remains of the Cup.”
This Saturday, in the last match of group A of the Copa América against Peru, the Argentine coach announced that he will give the opportunity to play to players who did not have much participation until now. The replacement, clearly, could benefit Lautaro Martínez.
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Loop. I followed the coverage on clarin.com.
In the debut against Canada, Álvarez and Lautaro Martínez, when he replaced him, scored for the National Team. This Tuesday, he had to repeat the celebration for the former Racing, who now seems to have reconciled with the goal after a long adverse streak, even during the 2022 World Cup, when Argentina took over the highest award.
From a friendly against Honduras in September 2022 to another preparation game against Costa Rica last March, 777 minutes passed without goals for Lautaro with the National Team shirt, including the seven games in Qatar 2022, in which he started as a starter. and then he left the place for Julián Álvarez and six of the South American Qualifiers towards the 2026 World Cup.
Against Chile, Martínez scored his 26th goal in 60 games with Argentina. In the historical table, furthermore, he placed eighth, closing the gap on Ángel Di María (30), Gonzalo Higuaín (31) and Diego Armando Maradona (32).
