Jesse Marsch has seen few more daunting challenges than Tuesday’s Copa América semifinal against Argentina, but the Canada manager is pretty used to being the underdog.
Marsch even went so far as to announce exactly what it’s going to take for his side to have a shot against the defending Copa América and World Cup champions.
“Argentina will have to be the best match we’ve ever played and it still might not be enough,” Marsch told OneSoccer. “But, whatever. We’re going to go for it.”
Marsch has a point. Argentina won all three of its group-stage games without conceding, and is unbeaten in its last 12 Copa América clashes (a run dating back to July 2, 2019). In major tournament play, Lionel Scaloni’s side has gone 10 straight matches without a loss, during which it has shut its opponent out six times.
Is Argentina vulnerable?
Despite a long run of success, there have been enough wobbles to ponder whether Argentina is truly unstoppable. The champions appeared on the brink of yet another shutout victory at this Copa América on Thursday, only for a stoppage-time goal from Ecuador to force penalties.
La Tri then missed a golden chance even later in the match to score a winner, and proceeded to waste the opening created when Lionel Messi’s panenka attempt floated off the top of the crossbar in first round of the penalty-kick tiebreaker.
While Lautaro Martínez is alone atop the Copa América scoring charts with four goals, Argentina has just one first-half goal in its four matches at this tournament. Scaloni’s side hasn’t managed to score more than two goals in any match at this event.
Argentina’s lone loss at the 2022 World Cup came at the hands of Saudi Arabia, who were largely expected to be cannon fodder. Argentina got its act together from there, but were stressed at times by Australia in the round of 16, and were taken to penalties by both the Netherlands and France.
Notably, Canada opened this tournament against Argentina, falling 2-0. On one hand, Marsch’s side had more chances than most expected, particularly when the match was 0-0. On the other, Argentina underperformed its expected goals total on the day after manufacturing a series of breakaways.
Canada will surely alter its specific tactics against Argentina in some way, but don’t expect Marsch to move away from the frenetic pace and transition-heavy style that he’s espoused elsewhere. Canada will, as Marsch says, “go for it.”
In a way, though, the key part of that quote is “But, whatever.” Canada surely knows that even a B-plus effort from Messi and Co. is probably going to be enough to win the game, even if this is in fact the best performance in Canadian men’s soccer history.
What Canada can’t do is let that knowledge hand Argentina a psychological edge. If Marsch’s approach is going to work, Canada has to be fearless, and to a certain degree will have to embrace the absurdity of the idea that a win over Argentina is possible.
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