Islamabad
\nArgentina captain Lionel Messi will be fit to play in Tuesday\u2019s Copa America semi-final against Canada in New Jersey, coach Lionel Scaloni said, despite the forward\u2019s hamstring injury concerns.
\nMessi returned to action on Thursday in Argentina\u2019s quarter-final win against Ecuador after missing the final group-stage match due to injury. He played the entire game, but looked physically hampered.
\nThe 37-year-old Inter Miami player missed a penalty in the shootout that decided the game at Houston\u2019s NRG Stadium.
\n\u201cLeo (Messi) is fine, he finished well, so tomorrow he will be part of the match, we are calm,\u201d Scaloni told a press conference on Monday ahead of the semi-final clash at the MetLife Stadium. \u201cHis level looks good. He is essential for us.\u201d
\nArgentina and Canada will meet for the second time in the tournament after the opening match in Group A, where the defending champions beat the CONCACAF side 2-0.
\nScaloni said this time he and his Canada counterpart Jesse Marsch will seek to try \u201csomething different\u201d.
\n\u201cAll coaches take notes to correct mistakes and hurt our opponents,\u201d the 46-year-old manager said. \u201cEach coach will have to do something different. We will try to have the ball and stop them from playing their game.\u201d
\nThe Argentine boss added that his side will look to counter the physical and aggressive play of Canada, who are coming off the back of a penalty shootout win over Venezuela.
\n\u201cCanada has players who are physically strong and also technically good, with a coach who has conveyed an aggressive way of playing,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cThey have made things difficult for all teams. Physically it\u2019s difficult to match them, but with our assets we hope to play the game on our side.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Islamabad Argentina captain Lionel Messi will be fit to play in Tuesday\u2019s Copa America semi-final against Canada in New Jersey, coach Lionel Scaloni said, despite the forward\u2019s hamstring injury concerns. Messi returned to action on Thursday in Argentina\u2019s quarter-final win against Ecuador after missing the final group-stage match due to injury. He played the entire …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":67130,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67122"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67132,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67122\/revisions\/67132"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}