Sub-20 World Cup: Argentina faces Nigeria all or nothing for the round of 16 | Mascherano’s team will have a test of mettle against the Africans

The selected Sub 20 of Argentina begins to cover the most demanding section of the World Cup in the category. But also the one who can take him towards the title. Starting at 6:00 p.m. and with joint television broadcasting by Public TV, TyC Sports and D Sports will face Nigeria at the Bicentennial stadium in San Juan for the round of 16 with the usual requirement in a World Cup: the one who wins continues and the one who loses, says goodbye.

If there is a draw after ninety minutes, there will be an extension. And if equality cannot be broken after 120 minutes, there will be kicks from the penalty mark. The winner will play next Sunday in Santiago del Estero against Ecuador or South Korea, which will be measured on Thursday at the Madre de Ciudades stadium in the capital of Santiago.

According to what could be known, Mascherano will return to the base of the team that played the first two dates of group A. Captain Agustin Giay will be the right side again and Valentine Boat He will do the same on the left, although he will play almost as a winger. Valentin Gomez will remain as the second central marker and the first doubt arises in his teammate since Lautaro Di Lollo could be replaced by Tomás Aviles, who is available again after the expulsion against Guatemala.

In the midfield he will return Mateo Tanlongo, who was preserved against New Zealand for having a yellow, next to him will be Maximo Perrone and a little later it will be located Valentin Carboni. However, Federico Redondo is not ruled out, of great performance against New Zealand, who competes for ownership with Perrone.

In the attack, the far right will be Brian Aguirre, who takes a slight advantage from Juan Gauto, and the scorer Alejo Veliz will play again boot. To complete the offensive, the most difficult unknown arises: sustaining from the beginning Luke Romeroauthor of a great goal against the New Zealanders or include again Matías Soulé, the player with the most hierarchy on the campus for his filming at Juventus.

For his part, Nigeria is presented as a careful rival since Although they qualified third in group D, they did so with the same points as Brazil and Italy in the most complicated and even zone of the World Cup. The Africans, runners-up in the 1989 edition, presented themselves with a narrow victory over the rookie Dominican Republic (2-1), then they surprised Italy, who had just beaten Brazil, defeating them 2-0 and in the last presentation they fell without mitigating against the Brazilians 2-0 in La Plata.

The squad, for the most part, is made up of players who are active in clubs in Nigeria except for its main figure, the midfielder Victor Eletu, who belongs to the B team of Milan, from Italy. Also stand out the captain Daniel Bameyiwho was already called up to the senior national team at the age of 17, and the midfielder Daniel Daga, who at 16 is one of the two youngest in the competition.

The Under 20 National Team went from being eliminated from the World Cup to taking on the role of candidate for being the host and the most winner of the competition, with six world titles. The balance of the first phase was highly positive since they closed their participation with an ideal score (three games played and three won), ten goals for and just one against. But a new story will begin to be written when the ball begins to run through the green grass of San Juan.