Scaloni: “Mexico is historically a difficult rival for us. I suffered it in 2006″

For Lionel Scaloni, coach of the Argentina national team, Winning Poland will be the key for Mexico; they see it possible to advance in Qatar despite sharing a group with Argentina because considered that this is a historical rival and that it currently has good players.

The whole of the Argentine team's group at the Qatar 2022 World Cup: days, times and stadiums of the three matches and for although the South American coach said his utmost respect considered that it is very likely that his pupils will have a very good group stage.

Speaking to the press in his country, Scaloni stated that “Mexico is historically a difficult rival for us in the World Cups. I suffered it in 2006, as a player.” The strategist recalled that that round of 16 match in Germany the match was close and after a one-goal draw, the duel extended and it was in the 98th minute that Maxi Rodríguez won the qualifying pass for the Argentines with a goal.

Despite the fact that the balance is favorable for his nation, Scaloni considered this duel to be a world cup classic and said that they will face it seriously.

The duel will take place on Saturday, November 26 at 10 am in Qatar at the Education City Stadium.

The South American team qualified second in the Conmebol qualifier undefeated while the Mexican side could not secure their ticket to the World Cup Joust until the final date of Concacaf, after beating El Salvador by two goals to zero in a duel held at Estadio Azteca.

Before it was known that both squads would share the same group in Qatar 2022, they had agreed on a preparation game, so the Argentine coach regretted that the only guaranteed duel has fallen so far and said that they will try to find a rival with similar characteristics to the Mexican one.

Scaloni assumed that they will be in the second phase of the tournament and in the event that Peru wins the ticket through the repechage there would be ample chances of meeting the Andean team, so he expressed his wish that it would happen, because they faced each other in the recent South American qualifiers where the celestes did not lose in no occasion.

Both teams have a long list of duels, and the statistics are favorable for the albiceleste, given that of the 31 matches, the South Americans won the victory in 15 games. For its part, Mexico has won only four times and in 12 matches they ended up tied.

As for his crosses in the World Cup, the Argentine national team managed to win three times. The first time was in the 1930 group stage with a 6-3 win, while the other two chances were in the knockout stages in Germany 2006 (2-1 in extra time with the remembered score of Maxi Rodriguez) and South Africa 2010.

The only times that Mexico managed to beat Argentina were in the 1967 friendlies (2-1), 1973 (2-0) and 1990 (2-0), while official competitions are only the record of the 2004 Copa América, in Peru, when Ricardo La Volpe's team defeated the representative 1-0 led by Marcelo Bielsa in the group stage.

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