adminARGENTINA will have the chance to exact revenge of sorts when they travel to Dusseldorf for a friendly international with Germany today, an instant repeat of the recent World Cup final in Brazil.
The match comes almost exactly two months after Mario Gotze crowned Germany world champions in Rio de Janeiro’s famous Maracana, but both sides will line up a little differently as they begin a new cycle to the 2018 finals in Russia.
German stalwarts Philipp Lahm, Miroslav Klose and Per Mertesacker have all retired from the national team and that allows for coach Joachim Loew to test out his exciting up-and-coming talent. New Argentina boss Gerardo Martino, who led Barcelona last season, will eye some rebuilding of his own in what will be a fascinating glimpse at the future of these two great footballing nations.
Today, England’s young guns will play host to Norway as they begin life without Steven Gerrard and under new captaincy in the form of Wayne Rooney.
There is also a feast of 2015 African Nations Cup qualifiers to be enjoyed this weekend as the group stages of the preliminaries for the finals in Morocco get under way.
South Africa play their first match away in Sudan on Friday, It is a first ever meeting between the two nations and Khartoum is no easy place to get a result at the best of times.
That same evening Senegal host Egypt in Dakar in another fixture. African champions Nigeria host Congo in Calabar on Saturday while the Black Stars of Ghana begin their road to Morocco at home to Uganda. Zambia tackle Southern African rivals Mozambique, while Cameroon will want to make up for their bitterly disappointing World Cup as they make the tough journey to DR Congo. The final two matches on Saturday see Gabon host Angola and Botswana travel to Tunisia. — SuperSport
Online Reporter