🥇 MOTM: A first Argentina World Cup start for a player with a huge future | OneFootball

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Chloe Beresford·30 November 2022

🥇 MOTM: A first Argentina World Cup start for a player with a huge future

Article image:🥇 MOTM: A first Argentina World Cup start for a player with a huge future

Argentina stayed away from the Group C chaos and secured their place in the knockout stages with a straightforward 2-0 win over Poland.

And our Man of the Match is …


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Julián Álvarez (Argentina)

Article image:🥇 MOTM: A first Argentina World Cup start for a player with a huge future


With Argentina’s place in the World Cup on the line, it was a big call by boss Lionel Scaloni to hand Julián Álvarez a place in the starting lineup – his first ever World Cup start – ahead of Lautaro Martínez.

Just a week before the tournament began, Scaloni had described Inter’s Martínez as his ‘golden boy’, but it seems like 22-year-old Álvarez has won a place in the coach’s heart too.

And that faith has paid off.

While the Manchester City man only made 21 passes during his 79 minutes on the field, he completed 85.7% of those attempts and fired off no less than six shots as he pressed to give his side the goals they needed to make it through to the knockouts and put an embarrassing defeat to Saudia Arabia to bed.

Lionel Messi’s penalty miss could’ve left Argentina with egg on their faces, but a superb second half attacking display from the Albiceleste proved to be crucial and Álvarez was crucial to that turnaround.

As Poland sat back, there were 27 uninterrupted passes that culminated in his strike, and he showed the poise and control to execute a superb finish.

It’s unlikely that we’ve seen the last of Julián Álvarez at this World Cup.