FIFA World Cup 2026 Advertisement live Updated 30s ago Lionel Messi’s Argentina face Austria today as they continue their 2026 World Cup campaign in Arlington, Texas. Messi, 38, scored a superb hat-trick to help the 2022 champions beat Algeria 3-0 in their tournament opener. He tied Miroslav Klose’s all-time men’s FIFA World Cup scoring record and will attempt to break it later today. With kick-off very nearly upon us, here's a quick reminder of the Argentina line-up named by Lionel Scaloni. As Daniel Taylor wrote in 2022, Argentina and Messi don’t just have natives behind them, with soccer fans from Bangladesh adoring the team from afar. I’m in Whitechapel, east London, home to a large proportion of the city’s Bangladeshi community. I spoke to shopkeepers Abdul and Mithu, who tell me: “We love the way they play football, watching Argentina is a family occasion built on generations.” With the match underway soon, manager Mithu will be leaving to see the game, meaning Abdul will miss it. The perks of management! Stefan Posch is out there for Austria despite the fractured jaw he picked up against Jordan in their opening game. The defender is wearing a custom-made protective mask after the Austrian medical team decided against surgery and worked quickly to get him ready. The mask was specially designed for Posch, with reports in Austria saying it was created in Los Angeles and produced overnight in Phoenix, Arizona. It's a hot, humid day in Dallas with temperatures reaching around 35 C (95 F). No problem for the players, though — the roof is closed and the air conditioning is on at AT&T Stadium. And here's the man himself acknowledging fans ahead of kick-off while the teams were going through their warm-ups. They're playing a video montage of every Messi World Cup goal on the big screen. All the Argentina fans broke into song as it started. Scaloni was asked a good question in the pre-match press conference about how this Argentina team have evolved from 2022. By my maths, they’ve won 34 of 42 matches since, including the 2024 Copa America in the United States. Scaloni’s team also came out on top in the CONMEBOL round robin to qualify. He said yesterday about how this Argentina team compares to the tournament-winning iteration four years ago. 💬 “Since Qatar we’ve played some great matches and maintained a consistent level.” “We’ve added Thiago (Almada), who didn’t have as much of a role before, it gives us a little more one-v-one (quality). Before there were four midfielders when we played with four players, which was much more about play and footwork. Thiago gives us a little more what Angel Di Maria used to do when he was on the right.” To evolve is to stand still in coaching. Scaloni is mindful of Argentina needing speed, dribblers and other avenues in attack beyond Lionel Messi. It also stood out that he highlighted how many teams are more focused on winning the ball in midfield over pressing high, something which is true of his Argentina team. It’s hard to overstate how incredible a job Lionel Scaloni has done for Argentina — he, for obvious reasons, is not their most important Lionel but he’s a damn close second to Messi. Before he took over in 2018, they had been on an awful run, losing four Copa America finals in five tournaments, as well as going out in the quarter-finals on home soil in 2011. There had been no progress made based on the 2014 success of reaching the World Cup final, where Germany beat them in extra time, and Messi was quickly running out of tournaments for an international trophy. Now, eight years on under Scaloni — he’s their longest-serving coach since Cesar Menotti in the 1970s and 1980s — they have won back to back Copa America titles and are looking to defend their World Cup trophy from Qatar in 2022. He’s been a tactically flexible coach and found balance in attack around Messi. Their 4-4-2 mid-block is stubborn, they have physical defenders and a lot of intensity in midfield. Rodrigo de Paul is hi
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