DHAKA: Latin American favourite Argentina will face little strong Bosnia & Herzegovina in its World Cup opener early Monday.
The 11th match of the world cup will be held at 4:00am (BDST) in Rio de Janeiro of Brazil.
Once again at this World Cup Argentina arrive with a potent front line but a shaky defence and goalkeeper, and La Albiceleste may well have to rely on outscoring opponents rather than grinding out narrow victories and clean sheets.
Fortunately, their first opponent in the group stages is Bosnia and Herzegovina, who have one of the weakest defences in the entire tournament; so much so that coach Safet Sušić has recently brought young centre-back Muhamed Bešić in to anchor the midfield.
Argentina coach Alejandro Sabella looks set to continue using his strange 4-2-3-1/4-3-3 hybrid, with Javier Mascherano anchoring the midfield alongside Fernando Gago, with Ángel di María given the freedom to drift forward from his central position to link with the attacking trio of Gonzalo Higuaín, Lionel Messi and Sergio Agüero.
Despite a string of blunders in qualifying, Sergio Romero is Argentina's favoured option in goal, with Pablo Zabaleta, Federico Fernández, Ezequiel Garay and Marcos Rojo forming an unconvincing back four.
BDST: 1100 HRS, JUN 15, 2014