Scaloni and Messi ready for Cape Verde as Germany crash out

Argentina face Cape Verde Friday with the path wide open

Germany are out. Paraguay knocked them off on penalties, and the supercomputer now has your team as the outright favorite for this World Cup. The equation is simple: beat Cape Verde in Miami on Friday, and you get the winner of Australia versus Egypt in the quarterfinal.

Scaloni is not looking past this one. "Cape Verde are not here by chance," he said (5). Their coach, Bubista, called it "the game of our lives" (4) and promised his side will play "without fear" (6) (7).

Scaloni pushes back on the Messi-dependence question

The question keeps coming. Scaloni keeps swatting it away.

"Of course, everything he does is more visible, but there is one more striker in the team," he said. "We do create chances, and Leo Messi, apart from being a great player, he's a striker. Whether he plays with Julian [Alvarez] or Lautaro [Martinez], we will try for all of them to score just as anyone else" (1).

Verón and Tevez are watching, and they like what they see

Juan Sebastián Verón is in Miami and spoke to Olé. "Seeing Leo at this level is incredible," he said. He singled out Enzo Fernández and Alexis Mac Allister: "They have impressive consistency and quality" (2).

Carlos Tevez kept it shorter. "Now we wait to see what Messi surprises us with next" (3).

Scaloni dismisses the favoritism noise

Social media has been buzzing with complaints about alleged favoritism toward Argentina. Scaloni shrugged it off: "You just shouldn't pay attention to social media, that's all. These days anyone can post something and it turns into something huge. It's not worth giving it any importance."

On the knockout stage: "We're doing well. Naturally, we're excited. But there's an opponent we have to face, one that has done things well. The margin for error is zero."

Fan-reaktioner

Scaloni's response to the favoritism complaints landed well with the fanbase. Calm, direct, and exactly the tone supporters want from their manager on the eve of a knockout match. The thread quickly turned to confidence about the Cape Verde game. Elsewhere, a nostalgia post recalling Germany's 4–0 quarterfinal win over Argentina on this day in 2010 served as a reminder of how much this team has changed since then.

Scaloni on favoritism complaints