Venezuela vs Argentina

South America’s 2022 World Cup qualifiers return to action this week as Venezuela and Argentina go head-to-head at the Estadio Olimpico de la UCV in Caracas.

Venezuela’s hopes of deleting an unwanted record of being the only South American nation yet to qualify for the World Cup finals look pretty slim already as they’ve managed just one victory from their first six Qatar 2022 qualifiers so far (D1, L4). Bettering just dead-last Peru on a superior goal difference, ‘La Vinotinto’ face an uphill task of whittling down a four-point gap on fifth-placed Chile. It will be up to interim manager Leonardo González to snap Venezuela’s six-match winless streak in all competitions (D3, L3). However, after failing to get on the scoresheet in four of their last five competitive outings, the hosts look unlikely to beat the reigning Copa America champions. On the bright side, though, they’ve avoided defeat in both previous World Cup qualifying home H2Hs (W1, D1).

Meanwhile, fresh from lifting the long-awaited Copa America title, Argentina will be looking to maintain an unbeaten start to the ongoing World Cup qualifying campaign (W3, D3). Delivering action from the get-go, the Argentineans have registered five of their six away goals scored in their away World Cup qualifiers in the first half of play, breaking the deadlock by the 17th minute in the last two in a row. Current boss Lionel Scaloni boasts an eye-catching 20-game undefeated streak (W12, D8 – 90 mins only), seeing his side keep four clean sheets in their last six competitive fixtures. Unbeaten in ten consecutive World Cup qualifiers (W4, D6), ‘La Albiceleste’ must be aiming to improve their outstanding 84% win ratio against Venezuela, which stands for their best success rate against any nation they have met at least 25 times.