Cracking match up in LA as these two sides meet up in an international friendly. Argentina is in CONMEBOL qualifying and sit top of the group with 5 wins and 1 loss. Recent friendlies have seen easy wins over Indonesia, Australia, Panama, Curacao and El Salvador. Costa Rica have been in Nations League action recently and have beaten Honduras but lost to Panama twice. Friendlies have seen wins over Saudi Arabia and El Salvador but a loss to UAE.
Team rankings:
Argentina – World ranked 1 with 1855 ranking points.
Costa Rica – World ranked 54 with 1453 ranking points.
Team news: No Lionel Messi who has been out for a few weeks. Also absent is Paulo Dybala and Exequiel Palacios. Costa Rica miss keeper Keylor Navas, Celso Borges, Oscar Duarte, and Bryan Oviedo.
Coach information: Lionel Scaloni has been in charge of Argentina since 2018 and has transformed them into World Champions. Likes the high press and likes to defend into the other half. Gustavo Alfaro makes it two Argentines in the dug out. The much travelled manager is on his 18th job! having coached about half of the Argentinian Primera top flight teams.
Head-to-head statistics: 3 games – 2 wins Argentina and 1 6 draws.
Betting selection – Costa Rica are blooding a lot of newer players, and this should take time for them to gel. Argentina is missing top players obviously but they are in superb form. Odds are restrictive here with an Argentina win around 1.16 or 1-6. So, with them being in top defensive form (10 clean sheets in last 11 games) let’s try Argentina win to nil at 3-4 or 1.75 BetVictor.