With Messi on the bench, this is Argentina's starting lineup to play Paraguay

This Thursday the Argentina National Team will play their third match in the South American qualifiers for the 2026 World Cup. In September they debuted with a 1-0 victory against Ecuador and a few days later they got a historic 3-0 win against Bolivia in La Paz. As a result, they lead the standings along with Brazil with 6 points and 2 points ahead of Colombia.

Now they will have the chance to win their third match in a row. They will face Paraguay at the River Plate Monumental stadium in Buenos Aires. Their opponents have not started the qualifiers well. They drew 0-0 against Peru in Ciudad del Este, in a match in which the visitors played with a man down for the whole second half, and then lost 1-0 against Venezuela. This led the chiefs of the Paraguayan Federation, dissatisfied with the team's performance, to fire coach Guillermo Barros Schelotto and hire Daniel Garnero in his place.

With this scenario, Lionel Scaloni assembled the team with the best players he has at his disposal. Some stars could not travel to Buenos Aires due to physical problems, such as Angel Di Maria, Lisandro Martinez and Paulo Dybala, while others will be in the squad but will not play from the start. This is the case of Lionel Messi, who although he is 100% recovered from his muscle injury, will not take unnecessary risks and will be a substitute.

Argentina's starting lineup will be: Emiliano Martínez; Nahuel Molina, Cristian Romero, Nicolás Otamendi, Nicolás Tagliafico; Rodrigo De Paul, Alexis MacAllister, Enzo Fernández; Julián Alvarez, Lautaro Martinez, Nicolás González. On the bench will be Franco Armani, Juan Musso, Walter Benitez, Gonzalo Montiel, Germán Pezzella, Lucas Martinez Quarta, Marcos Acuña, Leandro Paredes, Guido Rodriguez, Exequiel Palacios, Giovani Lo Celso, Thiago Almada, Lucas Ocampos, Alejandro Garnacho, Lucas Beltrán and Lionel Messi.

They need points

The bad start in the South American qualifiers forces Paraguay to get at least a draw in their visit to Argentina. Otherwise they will be far from the qualification zone. Daniel Garnero will debut as coach with this XI: Carlos Coronel; Ivan Ramirez, Fabián Balbuena, Gustavo Gomez, Junior Alonso, Matias Espinoza, Alvaro Campuzano, Richard Sanchez, Miguel Almiron, Ramon Sosa, Adam Bareiro.