Argentina have enjoyed an impressive start to their World Cup campaign so far, at least in terms of their performances on the pitch. They opened their tournament with a 3-0 victory over Algeria, inspired by a hat-trick from Lionel Messi. Their next opponents will be Austria in their second group-stage match the day after tomorrow.
However, one issue has been causing discomfort for coach Lionel Scaloni. Since the start of the World Cup, he had not had his entire squad available for training on a single day.
At various times, Emiliano Martínez, Lionel Messi, Cristian Romero and Julián Álvarez were absent from training, while on other occasions Nicolás Paz, Leandro Paredes and Nicolás Tagliafico also missed sessions. Because of various physical issues and precautionary rest periods, at least one player had been unavailable almost every day.
Scaloni finally had the entire squad training together on Friday. But amid that relief came fresh bad news. Gonzalo Montiel has been ruled out for at least one match because of a muscle injury. According to Argentine media reports, he will not play against Austria on Monday.
It is still uncertain whether Montiel will be available for Argentina's final group-stage match against Jordan. However, it is now almost certain that Scaloni will make at least one change to the starting XI that faced Algeria when Argentina take on Austria.
Montiel started Argentina's opening match against Algeria. The first concerns over his fitness emerged the day before yesterday. The River Plate full-back, who had recovered from a left quadriceps injury to feature in the opening game, did not take part in field training that day and instead spent time in the gym.
Although he returned to the pitch and resumed training with his teammates on Friday, he was unable to complete the session. Subsequent medical examinations revealed that he was suffering from an overload-related problem in his right quadriceps.