Mexico might be in better shape than the United States heading into their Confederations Cup playoff, but only marginally. They're still getting used to interim manager "Tuca" Ricardo Ferretti, and their fans don't feel like their Gold Cup win was particularly impressive. El Tri will have to up their game on Tuesday, when they face Argentina.
While Mexico won the Gold Cup final against Jamaica comfortably, all of their other recent matches have gone poorly. They drew Guatemala and Trinidad and Tobago in the Gold Cup group stages, then needed both extra time and bad refereeing decisions to get by Costa Rica and Panama. They played TT in a rematch on Friday and drew once again, 3-3.
Ferretti has left Mexico regulars Oribe Peralta, Giovani dos Santos and Guillermo Ochoa off his team, while defenders Paul Aguilar and "Maza" Francisco Rodriguez miss out dude to injury. The only fairly new players he's brought in are Israel Jiménez and Jesús Dueñas, both of whom play for him at UANL Tigres and had been capped multiple times by previous El Tri managers.
Argentina have sent a number of the players called into this squad initially home early due to fitness concerns. Gonzalo Higuain, Angel Di Maria, Lucas Biglia, Javier Pastore, Pablo Zabaleta and Ezequiel Garay will not play in this match. Expect to see some young players like Matías Kranevitter, Ángel Correa and Ramiro Funes Mori get looks.
Match date/time: Tuesday, 10 p.m. ET
Venue: ATT Stadium, Arlington, Texas
TV: ESPN2 (U.S. - English), Univision Deportes, UniMás (U.S. - Spanish)
Online: Watch ESPN (U.S. - English), Univision Deportes en vivo (U.S. - Spanish)
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