Lionel Scaloni has confirmed Lionel Messi will be involved when Argentina visit Angola for a friendly on Friday, with the World Cup holders intending to field a strong lineup.<\/p>\n
Argentina’s final game of 2025 will take place at the Estadio 11 de Novembro in Talatona, forming part of the celebrations to mark 50 years of independence for Angola.<\/p>\n
The Albiceleste cruised through the CONMEBOL 2026 World Cup qualification group, finishing nine points clear of second-placed Ecuador after winning 12 of their 18 games (two draws, four losses).<\/p>\n
Angola, meanwhile, are 89th in the FIFA World Rankings and missed out on World Cup qualification after finishing fourth in a six-team group, behind Cape Verde, Cameroon and Libya.<\/p>\n
But Scaloni is taking the game seriously, and Messi \u2013 who is still involved in the MLS Cup Playoffs with Inter Miami \u2013 will play a prominent role.<\/p>\n
“Messi is going to play. Right now, I don’t know how many minutes. It’s going to be from the start and then we’ll see. But people will see tomorrow,” Scaloni said.<\/p>\n
“I know the Angolan players, they have players in teams in Europe, in Italy and Spain. They have very fast players up front. Their wingers are fast.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“They have very tall centre-backs who will go head-to-head with us, but I will keep their weaknesses to myself because I want to tell my players. They will be a complicated opponent. As I always say, our superiority must be reflected.”<\/p>\n
Scaloni then said many of his players had work to do to ensure their spot in his squad for next year’s tournament, with Friday’s game representing an opportunity to impress.<\/p>\n
“It is going to be a totally trustworthy team that has played a lot together,” he added. “Many boys who have been world champions on the field will be in the game.<\/p>\n
“In the national jersey, there are no friendly matches. We also have players who are playing to be at a World Cup, so they will give their maximum and then we will see the result. The important thing is that it is a good game.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lionel Scaloni has confirmed Lionel Messi will be involved when Argentina visit Angola for a friendly on Frida<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2695370,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[785161],"tags":[133793,23370],"class_list":{"0":"post-2695369","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-argentina","8":"tag-argentina","9":"tag-23370"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/wakoka.com\/@news\/115549030647941579","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2695369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2695369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2695369\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2695370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2695369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2695369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2695369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}