Aguero and Otamendi to both start against Iceland

Manchester City stars Sergio Agüero and Nicolás Otamendi have both been confirmed in Argentina’s starting eleven for their opening game against Iceland.

Jorge Sampaoli made an unprecedented move in his pre-match press conference and confirmed to the media who will be walking out of the Spartak Stadium this afternoon and onto the pitch.

The manager read his team out and stated his mind was made up on Wednesday with only injuries to be changing factor to unsettle the set-in-stone team.

Otamendi was considered a sure thing to start the game as he is considered Argentina’s best centre back. He will partner Marco Rojo in the central defence positions, while former City keeper Willy Caballero will be organising the back four in goal.

The big debate ahead of the game was Lionel Messi’s partner up front, with Gonzalo Higuain pushing City’s all-time leading goal scorer all the way.

Agüero is often preferred in favour of the Juventus striker due to his better relationship with the ‘genius’ star and will often get the better out of the Barcelona forward.

Sampaoli will go with the defensive midfielders of Lucas Biglia and Javier Mascherano, with Angel Di Maria and Maximiliano Meza duplicating the style of the Spanish champions to make Messi more comfortable.

"“It is true that the coach organises the team but the footballers create the opportunities on the pitch and if you have players like Messi then the coach has to organise players around him to take advantage of his amazing skills.” – Jorge Sampaoli"

Agüero has scored 37 goals in 85 appearances and only third in the nation’s all-time goalscoring record, behind Messi and Gabriel Batistuta.

Many people will have Argentina as their favourites to win the World Cup after reaching the final in 2014, however, the lack of warm-up games and their poor qualifying campaign has led many to doubt their early predictions.

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Their ‘pre-tournament’ game against Israel was cancelled on political grounds and they left their qualification to the last game, avoiding a playoff fixture against New Zealand.

However, Argentina fans and players seem confident ahead of their opening fixture. City fans will not begrudge their hero having a great tournament and lifting the World Cup come 15 July.