{"id":671867,"date":"2026-07-03T12:00:30","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T16:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=671867"},"modified":"2026-07-03T09:48:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T13:48:11","slug":"argentina-team-news-vs-cape-verde","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2026\/07\/03\/argentina-team-news-vs-cape-verde\/","title":{"rendered":"Argentina Team News and Predicted Lineups vs Cape Verde"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Last Word on Football brings you the latest Argentina team news ahead of their World Cup Round of 32 clash against Cape Verde on Friday. La Albiceleste won all three of their Group J games, secured first place and set up this crucial knockout match in Miami Stadium, where talisman Lionel Messi plays his club football. Messi, again, is expected to be crucial and hungry for goals after Kylian Mbappe joined him at the top of the scoring charts. Having witnessed traditional powerhouses Germany and the Netherlands suffer defeat, manager Lionel Scaloni will be keen to see a professional performance against Cape Verde, currently ranked 64th in the FIFA World Rankings.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Here is the latest Argentina team news for their first knockout match.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Read More:<\/b> <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2026\/06\/30\/germanys-world-cup\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Germany&#8217;s World Cup Fallout: Change is Required<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>Argentina vs Cape Verde: Latest Argentina Team News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><b>Date:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Friday, 3 July 2026<br \/>\n<\/span><b>Venue:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Miami Stadium, Miami Gardens<br \/>\n<\/span><b>Kick-off:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> 23:00 GMT<br \/>\n<\/span><b>Referee: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Drew Fischer<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Current odds:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><iframe width=\"430\" height=\"335\" style=\"border: 0; overflow: hidden; border-radius: 0; display: block;\" src=\"https:\/\/live-odds.casinokings.com\/embed\/30151671\" scrolling=\"no\" loading=\"lazy\"><br \/>\n<\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3><b>Argentina Team News<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thesun.co.uk\/sport\/39504140\/argentina-cristian-romero-injury-world-cup\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Cristian Romero suffered an injury in the 2\u20130 win over Austria<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and was not risked for the match against Jordan. However, the centre-back is set to return, replacing veteran Nicolas Otamendi.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Having secured qualification to the knockout stages after two matches, Scaloni had the luxury of resting a host of stars against Jordan.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Read More:<\/b> <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2026\/06\/29\/2026-world-cup-round-of-32-predictions-england-vs-dr-congo\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">World Cup Round of 32 Predictions<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Those players, including Messi, who played just 30 minutes, are expected to return to the starting lineup.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Scaloni continues to face a selection dilemma in forward areas, but Lautaro Martinez\u2019s performance in the final group game is likely to see him retain his starting berth.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>Argentina Predicted Lineup\u00a0<\/b><\/h3>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"max-width: 600px\"><smartframe-embed class=\"smartframe_wp_element\" customer-id=\"a61405551f80e72f675225f083759bb9\" image-id=\"fwuQH1zcuAe7\" style=\"width: 100%; display: inline-flex; max-width: 4627px; aspect-ratio: 4627\/3084;\" ><\/smartframe-embed><\/p>\n<p>They set up in a 4-4-2 that provides a solid defensive block behind their superstar and gives him players to pick out or use as dummies when on the attack.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">GK &#8211; E.Martinez<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">RB &#8211; Molina<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">CB &#8211; Romero<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">CB &#8211; Lisandro Martinez<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">LB &#8211; Medina\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">CM &#8211; Fernandez<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">CM &#8211; De Paul<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">CM &#8211; Mac Allister<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">RM &#8211; Messi<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">LM &#8211; Almada<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">ST &#8211; Lautaro Martinez<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Featured Image Credit<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>IMAGO \/ Fotobaires<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last Word on Football brings you the latest Argentina team news ahead of their World Cup Round of 32 clash against Cape Verde on Friday. La Albiceleste won all three of their Group J games, secured first place and set up this crucial knockout match in Miami Stadium, where talisman Lionel Messi plays his club [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5771,"featured_media":641367,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[161,1831,2132],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-671867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-football","category-starting-line-up","category-world-cup"],"modified_by":"Alex Richards, LWOF Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5771"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=671867"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671867\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":671929,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671867\/revisions\/671929"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/641367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}