Argentina, the hosts of this year’s tournament, are under immense pressure to succeed when we get underway in the Copa América next week. Despite their two World Cups and fourteen Copa América titles, it has been eighteen years since this traditional football powerhouse has won a trophy at senior level. At the World Cup in 2010, Argentina took to the field with the world’s best footballer in their squad surrounded by several other top class players, yet they were ripped apart in the quarter finals by Germany, leaving the entire nation embarrassed.

In the 2010-11 European season, Barcelona were the undisputed best team on the continent. With the majority of their squad having played together from a young age, they employed a high tempo 4-3-3 formation, orchestrated by Xavi in the midfield and Lionel Messi grabbing the headlines up front. Everyone was watching as they dissected Real Madrid and won 5×0 at the Camp Nou, and everyone was watching once again when they disposed of Manchester United in the Champions League final in May. Amongst the delighted spectators was Argentina’s new national team coach, Sergio “Checho” Batista, who has since attempted to emulate this formation with la Albiceleste.

Some of the elements of Batista’s “imitation Barca” appear to be rather successful, they have the real deal in Lionel Messi, the master of the “false nine” position, and Valencia’s Éver Banega works superbly in the Xavi role, his link-up play with Messi has been nothing short of spectacular. Behind Messi and Banega there are the two solid defensive midfielders, Esteban Cambiasso and team captain Javier Mascherano, and they help to make sure that the more creative players have space and time in which to operate.

However there are some obvious flaws in this system, first of all in attack where perhaps the biggest problem facing Batista is that David Villa was not born in Argentina. For Barcelona’s system to work with Messi in the centre forward position retreating back into midfield, there needs to be two wingers who can cut in and attack (à la David Villa and Pedro at Barcelona). The two players that Batista has favoured for the wings are Ángel Di María and Napoli’s Ezequiel Lavezzi, two excellent talents but lacking the skills required to provide that danger coming inside. Time and time again in friendlies we have seen Di María dancing down the flank, getting to the touchline and delivering a wonderful cross that no-one is there to head towards goal, as they are lacking a central presence to charge in to the box.

There is one player in the Argentina setup that could certainly perform well in that wide attacking role, Sergio “Kun” Agüero, but Batista has not seemed so keen on selecting him. The reason for that is most likely down to Agüero’s ties with the former manager Diego Maradona (Agüero is el Diego’s son-in-law), and the war of words between Maradona and Batista has been widely publicised. Another player who has been caught up in this dispute is Carlos Tévez, and since Batista hinted that he may not be taking Tévez to the Copa América, there has been no shortage of drama surrounding the matter. The fallout between Tévez and Batista goes back to November of 2010, when Tévez pulled out of a national team friendly against Brazil complaining of an injury, and considering he played ninety minutes for Manchester City only three days later, Batista was doubtful of whether Tévez’s excuse was genuine.

Since then Batista was adamant that he was not going to select Tévez in the squad for the Copa América, something which outraged the Argentine public (Tévez is known as ‘el jugador del pueblo’ – the player of the people) and led to constant criticism and public derision from Diego Maradona. Batista appeared to be certain of his decision, but when the provisional 26-man squad was announced, in a remarkable U-turn Tévez had been included, leading to even more criticism of Batista, rightly questioning his integrity and guts.

In this writer’s opinion, Batista had every right not to pick Tévez. The lack of respect he has shown to his manager has been less than professional, but also there is a fundamental tactical reason that Batista did not want to select Tévez. With Lionel Messi filling the central role, Tévez is not suited to playing out on the wing and would certainly not be very happy about it. He could definitely function well if Batista tries to switch things around and play a genuine striker up front, but Real Madrid’s Gonzalo Higuaín will be Batista’s first choice centre forward ahead of Tévez. In any case, Tévez is a player with truly spectacular talent, and now that he has been selected he is sure to get some playing time in this year’s tournament, if only coming off the bench.

As I mentioned earlier, there is more than one major flaw in this Argentina system and it has been plaguing the national team for years. Going forward, Argentina have a wonderful array of options, there is no other country in the world that would ever consider not selecting Carlos Tévez for the national team, and in midfield they have formed a solid unit with some wonderful talents breaking through, but in comparison to that, their defence is truly woeful.

First of all, do not get me wrong, Argentina still have several decent quality players in their defence, but compared to a possible front-line of Agüero, Messi and Tevez, the defence really does not match up. In goal, AZ Alkmaar’s Sergio Romero will be the first choice as he has been for a while, but he is more sufficient than spectacular. Romero’s position should be ensured for a while though, as there are very few decent Argentine goalkeepers breaking through in the domestic game, and any that do look impressive are almost always prone to making huge errors in decisive matches.

Producing quality full-backs has always been a problem in Argentina. In the late sixties there was the great left-back Silvio Marzolini, one of the very few star full-backs in Argentine football history. In the 1978 World Cup-winning side of Kempes, Ardiles and Passarella, very few remember the full-backs, Jorge Olguín and Alberto Tarantini, and Maradona’s great 1986 side did not even play with any full-backs, opting instead for a 3-5-2 formation. With their rivals Brazil churning out more world class full-backs than they know what to do with, Argentina have been seriously left behind in that department.

Thankfully though, this current Argentina side can count on probably the best Argentine full-back since Marzolini, the once in thirty years phenomenon that is Javier Zanetti. Criminally left out of the 2010 World Cup by Diego Maradona, Zanetti will run the right back role, and fifteen years after his debut there is still no-one to challenge his place. Left-back is a different story however, but with Spartak Moscow’s Marcos Rojo starting to get some consistent playing time he may turn out to be a secure addition to the team. Rojo is a great athlete, very quick despite being over six feet tall, and he has already tasted major success at his old club Estudiantes, winning the 2009 Copa Libertadores at only 19 years old.

Despite these problems I have covered, there is no doubt that Argentina will go in to this tournament as favourites. Whether they can actually go all the way and win the trophy remains to be seen, the constant criticism of Batista, the annoyingly talkative duo of Diego Maradona and AFA president Julio Grondona and the whole Tevez saga could certainly have a negative effect on the squad and their chances.

However I can tell you one thing for sure, if Argentina does not win this year’s Copa América, Sergio Batista will be rather quickly out of a job.

Written by Euan Marshall

Euan is an amateur football writer based in São Paulo, Brasil. Take a look at his blog, I Like Football Me and follow him on Twitter where you can get updates regarding his latest work, and plenty more good stuff.