Argentina's Golden Generation Faces Challenges in Kansas City
Argentina have landed in Kansas City like a band getting back together for one last world tour. The faces are familiar, the songs are the same, and the frontman is still Lionel Messi. But this time, you can’t ignore the creak in the floorboards.
Seventeen of the 26 players who touched down in the United States were in Qatar three-and-a-half years ago. Ten of the 11 starters from the World Cup final against France are here in North America; only Ángel Di María, now retired from international duty after bowing out as Player of the Match in the 2024 Copa America final, is missing.
This is continuity on a scale international football rarely sees. Sixteen of Lionel Scaloni’s current squad were part of the group that won the 2021 Copa America, his first title. Compare that to the churn elsewhere: Brazil have retained just 11 players from their 2019 Copa squad, three of them goalkeepers. England, from their Euro 2021 finalists, have kept only nine.
Argentina, by contrast, have built a brotherhood. The same core, the same dressing-room hierarchies, the same voices in the huddle. That bond has carried them to three major trophies in as many years.
Now the question hangs in the Kansas heat: has the bill finally arrived?
A golden generation feeling the miles
Nine members of Scaloni’s squad are the wrong side of 30. Not fringe options either. Emiliano Martínez. Rodrigo De Paul. And Messi, who will turn 39 during his record sixth World Cup.
At the other end, the youth intake is thin. Only Giuliano Simeone, Valentín Barco and Nico Paz are under 25. Highly touted names such as Franco Mastantuono and Alejandro Garnacho have been left at home. The average age nudges past 29, and it’s not just the number that worries Argentina’s staff. It’s the mileage.
The past few years have been relentless. The 2024 Copa America, then the Club World Cup for 11 of these players. For some, three seasons have blurred into one long, draining slog.
Since the start of the 2024-25 campaign, Enzo Fernández and Julián Álvarez have each played 121 games for club and country. One hundred and twenty-one. Álvarez limped through the end of Atlético Madrid’s season with an ankle problem. Fernández, still only 25 and in prime physical condition, has covered so much ground that fatigue feels inevitable at some point.
Alexis Mac Allister offers a warning sign. He didn’t go to the Club World Cup, yet the Liverpool midfielder has still racked up 119 appearances over the past two seasons. He is expected to start Argentina’s opener against Algeria at Arrowhead Stadium on Tuesday, but his form has tailed off badly in the Premier League.
Former Liverpool winger Jermaine Pennant didn’t hold back when he spoke to TalkSport about Mac Allister after criticising him on social media during a defeat to Manchester City in February.
"I was watching the game and I was frustrated and I tweeted… I was angry. It was constructive angry… I touched on that, ‘after your injury in pre-season, you’ve come back a shadow of what you are; it seems like your legs have gone’. In that [City] game, he was literally a bystander, he didn’t really get into it at all and that’s what I touched on, it was an observation."
Those words will not have gone unnoticed in the Argentina camp. Mac Allister will start, but it is hard to imagine Scaloni giving him unlimited rope if the performance mirrors his club struggles.
Scaloni’s loyalty vs the need for risk
Unshaken by the outside noise, Scaloni is preparing to lean once more on the core that has never failed him at a major tournament. Seven of the starters from Lusail are expected to line up again against Algeria. That figure would likely have reached 10 had Álvarez, Nicolás Tagliafico and Nahuel Molina not arrived with minor injuries.
Cristian Romero, Nicolás Otamendi, Fernández, De Paul, Mac Allister and Messi are all set to reprise their roles. Lautaro Martínez, fresh from winning the Golden Boot at the 2024 Copa America, will step in for Álvarez up front. This is a team that knows how to suffer, how to manage games, how to win.
But can that same group carry Argentina deep into another World Cup without help from below? Or is this the moment Scaloni has to gamble?
His conservatism is already visible in one key decision. With Tagliafico sidelined, the obvious move at left-back would be to unleash Barco. The Strasbourg youngster, widely expected to join Chelsea this summer, has impressed in recent friendlies, scoring in two of Argentina’s last three games while operating slightly higher up the pitch. By trade he is a left-back, and at 21 his legs and energy could inject much-needed dynamism down that flank.
Scaloni, though, is set to turn instead to Lisandro Martínez. The Manchester United defender is more secure defensively and will be tasked with shackling Riyad Mahrez, Algeria’s veteran talisman. But Martínez is a centre-back by instinct. He is unlikely to offer the same thrust going forward that Barco naturally brings.
On the opposite side, the youth experiment will happen, but out of necessity. Simeone is expected to start at right-back, a role he is still learning. With Molina and Gonzalo Montiel both working their way back from injuries and only ready for limited minutes, the 21-year-old will be thrown into the line of fire until one of the specialists is fully fit.
The Nico Paz dilemma
The most intriguing fault line in this changing of the guard runs through the middle of the pitch and straight through Nico Paz.
At 21, the Como midfielder has lit up Serie A over the past two seasons. Under the guidance of Cesc Fàbregas on the touchline, Paz scored 13 goals and laid on seven assists this season, driving a newly promoted side to a remarkable fourth-place finish and Champions League qualification. The league named him Best Midfielder at its end-of-season awards. Real Madrid are widely expected to activate a buy-back clause in his contract.
Paz plays with a daring edge Argentina’s midfield has sometimes lacked of late. He sees passes others don’t, takes risks on the ball, and brings a youthful impatience that can jolt a game awake. Set that against the laboured recent displays of someone like Mac Allister, and the contrast is stark.
Yet Paz is likely to begin this World Cup where so many young talents do: on the bench. A minor knee issue has disrupted his preparation, and Scaloni’s instinct is to trust what he knows. The challenge for the coach will be resisting the temptation to stick with the old guard if the rhythm isn’t right and the legs look heavy.
He has ripped up the script before. In Qatar, his decision to promote the then 21-year-old Fernández into the starting XI midway through the group stage transformed Argentina’s tournament. It was bold. It was decisive. It changed everything.
If Scaloni is to make it four trophies from four, he may need to channel that same ruthlessness again.
A brutal path and a fading window
Argentina’s route, on paper, offers just enough danger to punish any hesitation. Win Group J ahead of Algeria, Austria and Jordan, and a round-of-32 tie awaits against the runners-up from Group H – potentially Spain, more likely Uruguay. Survive that, and a winnable last-16 clash should follow against the runners-up from either Group D (currently Australia) or Group G (likely one of Belgium, Egypt or Iran).
Then the temperature spikes.
If the seedings hold, Portugal loom in the quarter-finals. Messi vs Cristiano Ronaldo. One last collision between two giants, almost certainly at their final World Cup, with a semi-final place on the line.
By then, Scaloni will need to know exactly what his best team looks like, not just on paper but in the reality of a tournament played at full tilt by players with three unforgiving seasons in their legs. He may find that the ideal XI includes one or two of the kids he has so far kept at arm’s length.
Argentina have arrived in Kansas as world champions, continental champions, and favourites again. The bond in this squad is unbreakable. The medals prove it.
What we’re about to discover is whether loyalty to a golden generation is enough on its own, or whether Scaloni dares to refresh the band while the music is still playing.
