'Is this what Argentina are? England have more talent' – Neville's verdict on Messi et al
Gary Neville gave a damning verdict on Argentina during ITV's match coverage of their match against Mexico on Saturday night
Gary Neville laid into Argentina during ITV's match coverage of their World Cup clash against Mexico on Saturday night and claimed England have more talent than the Albiceleste.
Argentina came into the World Cup on an impressive 36-match unbeaten run under Lionel Scaloni, dating back to 2019, but the South Americans surprisingly lost their opening game to Saudi Arabia earlier this week.
Their only goal in that game came from the penalty spot, although they were unlucky to see another ruled out for a questionable offside call.
In any case, it was a disappointing display and there was no real improvement in the opening 45 minutes against Mexico, which was 0-0 at the break.
"You start to think: is this what Argentina are?" Neville said. "They had a great run coming into the tournament, but you’ve watched them now for a game and a half and there doesn’t look like there’s anything there; there’s no pattern of play, there’s no rhythm in what they’re trying to do."
Scaloni made five changes for the game against Mexico and Neville said: "It’s a massive about-turn from the coach to drop five players after game one and they look like they’re reeling from that.
"Mexico don’t look like they’ve got any ruthlessness in them, but it’s really poor, poor Argentina performance.
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"And Rodrigo de Paul, he was OK at Valencia when I had him, he’s had a decent career, [Alexis] Mac Allister at Brighton, they are decent players.
"I asked the question in the first half: England had a really poor performance last night, but how many of those Argentinian players on paper would you swap for English players and you think, what we’ve got, in [terms of] talent, Argentina haven’t got that."
Ben Hayward is a European football writer and Tottenham Hotspur fan with over 15 years’ experience, he has covered games all over the world - including three World Cups, several Champions League finals, Euros, Copa America - and has spent much of that time in Spain. Ben speaks English and Spanish, currently dividing his time between Barcelona and London, covering all the big talking points of the weekend on FFT: he’s also written several list features and interviewed Guglielmo Vicario for the magazine.