The Team:
Coach
Sergio Batista, 45, Under-23 Coach
Goalkeepers:
Oscar Ustari (22) (Getafe, Spain)
Sergio Romero (21) (AZ Alkmaar, Netherlands)
Defenders:
Pablo Zabaleta (23) (Espanyol, Spain)
Ezequiel Garay (21) (Real Madrid, Spain)
Federico Fazio (21) (Sevilla, Spain)
Nicolás Burdisso (24) (Internazionale, Italy)
Luciano Monzón (21) (Boca Juniors)
Midfielders:
Fernando Gago (22) (Real Madrid)
Ever Banega (20) (Valencia, Spain)
Javier Mascherano (24) (Liverpool, England)
Juan Román Riquelme (30) (Boca Juniors)
Angel Di María (20) (Benfica, Portugal)
José Sosa (23) (Bayern Munich, Germany)
Diego Buonanotte (20) (River Plate)
Forwards:
Lionel Messi (21) (Barcelona, Spain)
Ezequiel Lavezzi (23) (Napoli, Italy)
Lautaro Acosta (20) (Sevilla, Spain)
Sergio Agüero (20) (Atlético de Madrid, Spain)
Reserves:
Nicolás Navarro (Napoli, goalkeeper)
Nicolás Pareja (Anderlecht, Belgium, defender)
Lucas Biglia (Anderlecht, midfielder)
Emiliano Insúa (Liverpool, midfielder)
The reserves won’t travel but can be called up prior to the start of the tournament in case a squad member is injured. Argentina will play against Japan in a friendly on 29th July in Tokyo before traveling to Beijing.
Group A:
Cote D'Ivoire, Argentina, Australia, Serbia
Strange coincidence that this looks exactly like WC06 first round (swap Australia for Holland). Hopefully we will do better.
. Our two best u-23 midfielders are missing, Zdravko Kuzmanovic (Fiorentina) who just won the Best Young Rising star in Italy award and Miralem Sulejmani (Ajax) who won the Best Young Rising star in Holland for the past year and just transferred to Ajax for 18 million euros. Big hit, but I still look for us to finish 2nd behind Argentina in this group.
