The Argentina World Cup party is cut short; Manchester City vs. Liverpool eases us back into club soccer

The 2022 FIFA World Cup may be over, but the party is not even close to ending in Argentina after winning their third crown on Sunday. The scenes were bonkers as fans were jumping off overpasses to land on the parade bus to take pictures with Lionel Messi and company. Argentine fandom might be unrivaled. 

I’m Roger Gonzalez, and welcome to the Golazo Starting XI newsletter. Before we get to it, here are your notable games for the day: 

• UWCL: Lyon vs. Juventus, 12:45 p.m. ET
• EFL Cup: Manchester United vs. Burnley, 3 p.m. ET

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⚽  The Forward Line

A feud impacts World Cup title parade

Everybody should have probably seen this coming. A country so desperate for success on the global scale, having to wait 36 years for it to happen again, the fans swarmed the streets and everywhere in between to get a glimpse of their heroes. The team’s arrival in the early hours of Tuesday morning paved the way for a parade in Buenos Aires, but the team was not able to finish its route after just some unbelievable — yet scary — scenes. An estimated five million fans flocked to the streets of the capital city, and the team had to be exfiltrated by helicopters due to safety concerns. 

The champs could not even make it to the center of the city due to how oversized the crowd was, resulting in the parade ending much earlier than expected. 

One of the notable places that the team did not make it to was la Casa Rosada, which translates over to “The Pink House.” Yes, it’s their version of The White House, and it is indeed pink. Except the team appears to have not visited the house and president Alberto Fernandez on purpose as a feud rages on between him and Argentina Football Association president Chiqui Tapia. You may recall that French president Emmanuel Macron was in Qatar for the final, but Argentina’s president was nowhere to be found, not even to welcome the team back to the country at Ezeiza International Airport. That doesn’t appear to be a coincidence. 

Tapia reportedly let the government have it on Tuesday when speaking to Anibal Fernandez, the Minister of Security for the country: “They cut off the possibility of continuing to celebrate,” Tapia told him, according to Clarin. “They [expletive] on us. We want to continue.”

With the parade detouring due to security scenes and the government pushing for them to visit the federal area, it turned into a back and forth with no resolution as the day ended as neither had truly hoped. The government didn’t get the visit it wanted, and the team didn’t get to see the fans waiting at the iconic Obelisco monument. 

Tapia reportedly did not have any contact with the Argentine president, with the team not visiting la Casa Rosada viewed as a type of protest against the government. It’s easy to see why. 

According to Clarin, Tapia and Alberto Fernandez accuse each other of almost everything. “The president maintains in private that he considers Tapia a criminal,” while the president is accused of sending officials to harass Tapia in the past, blaming him for having allowed the 2020 Copa America to move from Argentina to Brazil. 

🔗  Midfield Link Play

Papu Gomez is going to regret this

I’ll chalk it up to jet lag, but come on, folks. Argentina’s celebration resulted in numerous players going shirtless for hours under the summer sun. Don’t forget that this is a country in the Southern Hemisphere, and it’s regularly pushing 90 degrees in December. As you can imagine, that has resulted in numerous players converting into lobsters with Papu Gomez even posting a picture with a caption reading “I need aloe vera.”

That just hurts to look at. Papu, if you see this, slicing some potatoes or tomato and putting them on the burns helps too. Don’t ask me how or why I know that, but I’ve been traumatized since experiencing something similar in vacation years ago. 

Let’s get to some links:

💰  The Back Line

Best bet

Club soccer is back, so let’s take a look at the biggest game of the weekday slate. All odds courtesy of Caesars Sportsbook.

• Manchester City vs. Liverpool, Thursday, 3 p.m. ET
  💰 THE PICK: Man City to win and both teams to score (+230). You thought you had a break, huh? Liverpool and Manchester City meet on Thursday in the League Cup, and while there will be some big names missing, let’s roll with Man City to win and both teams to score. This is not a tournament of the highest importance, I think it may be played more as a friendly, but this is a spot for Pep Guardiola to get Erling Haaland back into the flow of things. Mohamed Salah’s Egypt didn’t make the World Cup either, so we may just see some of these big boys in a game that rarely disappoints.