Scaloni confirms that Messi is “available” to play Venezuela

Buenos Aires, 24 Mar Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni confirmed Thursday that Lionel Messi, who recently went through a flu process, is “available” for this Friday's match against Venezuela, as part of the South American qualifiers for the Qatar World Cup. “Leo is fine, he trained normally and after the flu process he is available to play and hopefully he has a good game,” said the Argentine coach at a press conference. The Albiceleste coach also referred to the traumatic elimination of Paris Saint-Germain against Real Madrid in the Champions League, a situation that, in his opinion, “does not affect” the rosario star, who for a year and a half has been “comfortable” in the national team. “I think the situation doesn't affect him. He's fine, every time he comes here he shows it. Surely (Venezuela's) will be the last game we can play here and we hope that it will be able to say goodbye to Argentina in the best way, hoping that the future will be even better,” said Scaloni. Regarding tomorrow's match, the Argentine coach did not advance his starting eleven, waiting to check the status of Ángel di María and Ángel Correa in this afternoon's training session in Ezeiza. The one who will play in the game will be Franco Armani, River Plate goalkeeper, who will protect the home goal to replace Emiliano Martinez, one of the FIFA-sanctioned players along with Cristian Romero, Giovani Lo Celso and Emiliano Buendía. Another casualty for these dates is striker Lautaro Martínez, top gunner of the Scaloni era, who tested positive for covid a few days ago and joined the absences of Lisandro Martínez, Alejandro 'Papu' Gómez and Marcos Acuña due to injury. “As for goals, the team is doing well. We know that we have different options, some are more extreme than forwards, others are strikers, but it's not something that worries us,” said the Argentine coach in relation to Lautaro Martínez's substitute. “In the line of the last calls, the truth is that we are not having luck with both injuries and sanctions and we cannot make up the list the way we would like, but the boys always respond and whoever plays will do it in the best way,” added the coach, who will take advantage of the situation to test different players. In the previous two days, Argentina beat Chile 1-2 and Colombia 1-0 without Messi, who was absent to recover from coronavirus. After the match against Venezuela, Albiceleste will play Ecuador next Tuesday. Then he will have to play a pending match against Brazil from matchday six. Even with one less match, Canarinha leads the South American qualifiers with 39 points, followed by Argentina with 35. Then there are Ecuador (25) and Uruguay (22) in the direct qualifying zone, Peru (21), which would play a repechage, and behind are Chile (19), Colombia (17), Bolivia (15), Paraguay (13) and Venezuela (10) During the press conference, Scaloni was also asked about the draw for the World Cup, which will take place on April 1. “That they pass us directly to the second round, that is the desire,” said the Santa Fe coach laughingly, adding that any team that plays will be “difficult”, since football today “is very even”. CHIEF jacb/jl