Copa America 2024: Argentina’s positional dominance vs Chile’s defensive solidity – tactical analysis

In a match that was largely dominated by Argentina, Ricardo Gareca’s Chile side were able to defend solidly for the majority of the match, with only a late Lautaro Martinez winner in the 88th minute being the difference for Argentina. This result means Lionel Scaloni’s side are guaranteed a place in the quarter-finals of Copa América, while Chile need to win against Canada on the final day to advance. 

This tactical analysis will look at a couple of tactics from both sides and analyse how both Scaloni and Gareca looked to go about this matchup between two South American rivals. 

Lineups 

For Argentina, Lionel Scaloni stuck with the 4-4-2 formation that he deployed in Argentina’s first match of the group stage against Canada but made three changes to the starting lineup. Emiliano Martínez kept his place in goal, with Lyon’s Nicolás Tagliafico replacing Sevilla’s Marcos Acuña at left-back. The rest of Argentina’s backline stayed the same, with the Premier League pairing of Lisandro Martínez and Cristian Romero at centre-back and Nahuel Molina retaining his place at right-back. The other two changes occurred in the midfield four, with Nicolás González and Enzo Fernández coming into the midfield to replace Ángel Di Mariá and Leandro Paredes. Rodrigo De Paul and Alexis Mac Allister kept their places in the midfield. Manchester City’s Julián Álvarez partnered captain Lionel Messi up front. 

Ricardo Gareca made two changes to his Chile side that drew 0-0 with Peru in their opening group stage match, with the Argentine also using a 4-4-2 system. Claudio Bravo kept his place in goal, with the back four also staying the same. Toulouse’s Gabriel Suazo started at left back, with Paulo Díaz and Igor Lichnovsky being the centre-back pairing. Mauricio Isla started at right back for Chile. The two changes from Gareca occurred in the midfield, with talented 20-year-old Dario Osorío replacing Diego Valdés and Rodrigo Echeverría replacing Norwich City midfielder Marcelino Núñez. Erick Pulgar and Victor Dávila kept their places in the midfield. Alexis Sánchez and Eduardo Vargas kept their positions leading the front line up top. 

Argentina’s midfield dominance and looking to overload the left side 

The statistics paint a picture of this match mostly being dominated by Argentina, and that verdict would be accurate. In total, Argentina outshot Chile 22-3 (9-3 on target) while also holding just over 61% possession throughout the course of the 90 minutes. Most of these chances seemed to come from their left-hand side of the attack, with Scaloni’s game plan to isolate Isla and move the ball down this flank, with Messi often drifting over to help González. Tagliafico advancing to make overlapping runs while the fullback would also invert into central midfield while Fernández made third man runs from a deeper midfield position. They also held positional superiority in the midfield areas, with Chile having almost no presence in this area throughout the course of the match. 

The touch map above shows Argentinas dominance in the central areas of the pitch and how they looked to favour the left-hand side of their attack and the right-hand side of the Chilean defence. Chile had virtually no presence in the midfield for the majority of the match, with Gareca’s side forced to play the ball long and bypass the middle third of the pitch.