Argentina's Probability of Last Few watch!

Argentina starts as favorites to beat Iceland in their first World Cup match in Group D on Saturday, but the toughest opponent for the runners-up four years ago may be themselves and not the small debutants of the tournament. Champions in 1978 and 1986, Argentina is part of the elite of football and has in its ranks Lionel Messi, the five times world player of the year. But they only qualified for Russia thanks to a victory in their last qualifier against Ecuador and scored 19 goals in 18 games, the lowest in any South American qualifier. Since the adoption of the format of a single group in the mid-1990s.

Since then, the team's problems have worsened: a small victory over Italy's non-qualifiers in March was followed four days later by a 6-1 penalty by Spain, and was compounded by bad luck and poor planning. .

Argentina lost its first goalkeeper, Sergio Romero, with a knee injury and midfielder Manuel Lanzini withdrew after damaging the ligaments nine days before the tournament. They recovered to beat Haiti 4-0, but that did little to convince the anxious fans.