Two nations looking to return to form will do battle today in an international friendly between Argentina and Croatia. The match scheduled for 2:30 p.m. ET will be held at the Boleyn Ground in London and can be live streamed here free. Additional TV coverage can be found on beIN Sports en Español.
What They're Saying
Argentina head coach Gerardo Martino (via Goal): "We have decided that Messi has to play on the right wing. Otherwise, we would have—given how they all play in their teams—almost a fourth No. 9. I also know [Gonzalo] Higuain doesn't play in the same way as [Sergio] Aguero does, nor [Carlos] Tevez does. But at the end of the day, in a system like ours, not everybody has to be a No. 9, nor have the qualities to move to the wing."
"As I said before, except in specific cases and certain moments of a match or certain moment of a decisive tournament, it will be pretty difficult to see all of them or most of them," he added. "At least at the beginning of a game. Actually, in these friendlies where we'll play two games, the idea will be to watch as many players as we can, from the beginning of the match or during the game. Maybe building different lineups and we will follow this idea as we did in the last tour [of Asia]. And we will confirm the lineup after the training session."
Tactical Preview
Player to Watch: Croatia's Mateo Kovacic has two goals and an assist in 11 appearances with Inter Milan this season. The 25-year-old, predominantly featuring in the center of the park, is averaging 2.6 key passes.
Argentina's Projected Lineup (4-3-3): Romero; Zabaleta, Fazio, Demichelis, Ansaldi; Banega, Mascherano, Perez; Messi, Aguero, Maria
Croatia's Projected Lineup (5-3-2): Kalinić; Vrsaljko, Jedvaj, Lešković, Leovac; Antolić, Badelj; Milić, KovaÄić, Sharbini; ÄŒop
Note: Credit all statistics to officially licensed data from Opta Sports (via WhoScored).
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