{"id":11251,"date":"2021-09-02T10:57:52","date_gmt":"2021-09-02T02:57:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/?p=11251"},"modified":"2021-09-02T10:57:53","modified_gmt":"2021-09-02T02:57:53","slug":"messi-ready-for-world-cup-qualifiers-says-argentina-boss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/?p=11251","title":{"rendered":"Messi ready for World Cup qualifiers says Argentina boss"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

CARACAS, Sept 2 — Lionel Messi will be fit to play in all three of Argentina\u2019s World Cup qualifiers against Venezuela, Brazil, and Bolivia, Albiceleste head coach Lionel Scaloni said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 34-year-old forward has not started a match since the Copa America final on July 10, in which Argentina beat Brazil 1-0 at Rio de Janeiro\u2019s Maracana stadium. His only competitive appearances since then came in a 25-minute cameo for new club Paris Saint-Germain in their 2-0 Ligue 1 win at Reims on Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFrom my conversations with Messi, there are no doubts whatsoever,\u201d Xinhua quoted Scaloni telling a virtual news conference. \u201cHe hasn\u2019t had many minutes but he is going to play and hopefully he will do so in all three games.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Messi\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Argentina will meet Venezuela in Caracas on Thursday and Brazil in Sao Paulo on Sunday before a clash with Bolivia in Buenos Aires on Sept 9.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scaloni said he also expects Aston Villa pair Emiliano Martinez and Emiliano Buendia to feature in all three games despite a request by the Premier League club for the pair to miss the duel with Bolivia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the manager will be without central defender Cristian Romero and midfielder Leandro Paredes for the matches due to suspension.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTomorrow’s game (Thursday)\u00a0will be very difficult. Venezuela is in need of points and has a strong\u00a0team,\u201d\u00a0 Scaloni said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Argentina is currently second in the South American zone qualifiers for next year\u2019s World Cup, six points behind leaders Brazil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

— BERNAMA<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CARACAS, Sept 2 — Lionel Messi will be fit to play in all three of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11252,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,59],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","category-world"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Screen-Shot-2021-09-02-at-10.54.54.png",589,320,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Screen-Shot-2021-09-02-at-10.54.54-150x150.png",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Screen-Shot-2021-09-02-at-10.54.54-300x163.png",300,163,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Screen-Shot-2021-09-02-at-10.54.54.png",589,320,false],"large":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Screen-Shot-2021-09-02-at-10.54.54.png",589,320,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Screen-Shot-2021-09-02-at-10.54.54.png",589,320,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Screen-Shot-2021-09-02-at-10.54.54.png",589,320,false],"newsium-slider-full":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Screen-Shot-2021-09-02-at-10.54.54.png",589,320,false],"newsium-featured":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Screen-Shot-2021-09-02-at-10.54.54.png",589,320,false],"newsium-medium":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Screen-Shot-2021-09-02-at-10.54.54.png",589,320,false]},"author_info":{"info":["Editor"]},"category_info":"Sports<\/a> World<\/a>","tag_info":"World","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11251"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11253,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11251\/revisions\/11253"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}