🇦🇷 Argentina vs 🇦🇹 Austria

Argentina are the defending champions. Messi is back for his sixth World Cup — a record no man has ever reached. He's 38. He has a dodgy hamstring. And he still might be the best player at the tournament. Just let that sink in for a moment.

17 of the players who won it in Qatar are still in the squad. This is not a team in transition. This is a team that won the thing and just turned up again to win it again. Absolutely nobody else at the tournament wanted this draw.

There is a genuine injury concern about Messi before a ball has been kicked. He's been nursing a hamstring problem and Argentina's medical team is being very careful about what they say publicly. This is the kind of information that sounds very knowledgeable if you drop it casually.

Their goalkeeper Emiliano Martínez — who saved two penalties in the Qatar final — turned up to this tournament with a broken finger after Aston Villa won the Europa League. He's expected to play anyway, because of course he is.

Argentina face Algeria, Austria and Jordan in the group — on paper the kindest draw of any top-five contender. Which means either they sail through, or they somehow make it dramatic anyway. With Argentina, dramatic is never fully off the table.

Austria have had their best decade in football for 50 years. Under Ralf Rangnick, who left Manchester United for the national job, they've become a physically intense, well-organised team that caused problems for everyone in European qualifying.

Ralf Rangnick is a fascinating figure if you want to sound knowledgeable — he's the man who invented the high-pressing style now used by Liverpool, Manchester City and Bayern Munich. He's running a national team of 9 million people and making it look deceptively straightforward.

Marcel Sabitzer is their captain — the Borussia Dortmund midfielder brings energy and technical quality that epitomises the modern Austrian approach. He's the engine the team runs through.

Austria are in Group J with Argentina, Algeria and Jordan. Qualifying from this group would be a significant achievement. But Austria have beaten better opposition in recent qualifying campaigns, and Rangnick's teams are never easy to play against.

Austria actually qualified ahead of Germany for the 2024 Euros. If someone trots out "Austria are just Germany but worse", this is the specific fact you want to have ready.