Thomas Niedermueller
Alejandro Sabella appears to have his selection down perfectly. He picked the same midfield and attack he's used in recent qualifying matches, and they were solid in a win over Sweden.
Sweden found two goals on set pieces, but did very little from open play as the Albiceleste ran out deserved 3-2 winners. Lionel Messi was not directly involved in any of Argentina's goals, but Gonzalo Higuain and Sergio Aguero turned in dominant performances going forward.
Higuain was the man on the end of the move that produced Argentina's first goal, though it was credited as an own goal by Mikael Lustig. A fantastic team counter-attacking move ended with a ball being slotted through to Higuain by Angel di Maria, and his shot deflected off Lustig before going in at the near post.
Sweden hit back in the 18th minute, on a brilliant header by Jonas Olsson. On a corner to the back post, he rose up above everyone to get onto the ball and nod past Sergio Romero.
Di Maria was involved in the setup of the second Argentina as well, which came less than two minutes after Sweden's equalizer. He played the final pass of the move to Aguero, who rounded Andreas Isaksson before finishing calmly. Higuain added Argentina's third four minutes later to put his side up by two goals.
Very little happened in the second half until Rasmus Elm scored an absolute stunner with the last kick of the ball. Argentina gave away a free kick more than 30 yards from goal and Elm stepped up to drill a thunderbolt past Romero to make the score look a little more flattering to the hosts.
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