Argentina prepares three diagrams to play Croatia

* Argentina - Croatia: 2:00 pm on December 14, on MetaSports.

During the training session on December 12, according to Croatian newspaper 24Sata, Scaloni let Argentina try the 4-3-3 diagram first. This chart includes Martinez - Molina, Romero, Otamendi, Tagliafico - De Paul, Fernandez, Mac Allister - Messi, Alvarez, Di Maria.

Then Scaloni tried the diagram without Di Maria. He replaced the Juventus winger with midfielder Lisandro Martinez, creating a 5-3-2 formation as used in the quarter-finals.

Finally, the Argentina coach tried the 4-4-2 formation. This chart includes Martinez - Molina, Romero, Otamendi, Tagliafico - De Paul, Paredes, Fernandez, Mac Allister - Messi and Alvarez.

According to 24Sata, Scaloni prepared a 4-4-2 formation to deal with Croatia's strong midfield. He added Paredes to the midfield to increase the possibility of contention. Croatia owns three top midfielders in Europe including Modric, Kovacic and Brozovic.

Two important Argentine players, De Paul and Di Maria, are suspected of being injured. They also had trouble losing Marcos Acuna and Gonzalo Montiel due to having received two yellow cards.

Croatia has no suspended players. However, central defenders Gvardiol and Brozovic both had to practice separately on December 12 to recover better after the quarter-finals. Croatia is likely to play the semi-final with a 4-3-3 formation that won against Brazil, including Livakovic - Juranovic, Lovren, Gvardiol, Sosa - Brozovic, Modric, Kovacic - Pasalic, Kramaric and Perisic.

Croatia has not lost a match since the beginning of the 2022 World Cup. In the group stage, coach Dalic's teachers and students drew 0-0 with Morocco, won 4-1 against Canada and drew with Belgium 0-0. In the 1/8 round and quarter-finals, Croatia won on penalties 3-1 against Japan and 4-2 against Brazil, respectively.

Argentina started with a 1-2 loss to Saudi Arabia, but still led Group C. In the next two matches, teachers and students won against Mexico 2-0 and Poland 2-0. In the 1/8 round, they overcame Australia with a score of 2-1. In the quarterfinals, after drawing 2-2 over 120 minutes, Argentina beat the Netherlands 4-3 in a penalty shootout.

In the 2018 World Cup group stage, Croatia beat Argentina 3-0. Six of the 14 Croatian players who came on the field in that match are pivotal in this year's tournament, including Modric, Kovacic, Brozovic, Perisic, Kramaric and Lovren. Meanwhile, Messi, Dybala, Otamendi and Tagliafico are about to have the opportunity to meet their opponents again.