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Nico Paz has made a subdued start to his Argentina career, scoring only three times in 13 appearances, and barely got a look-in at the World Cup. This is mainly because he is too similar in profile to Messi. <\/span><\/p>\n As an intelligent, technically brilliant No.10 who can open games up in an instant – and also happens to be left-footed – it would be natural for Paz to inherit Messi’s throne. The 22-year-old is already following in his footsteps at Como, having become the youngest Argentine since Messi for Barcelona in 2008 to set up multiple goals in a single Champions League match.<\/span><\/p>\n He registered two assists as Como kicked-off their first-ever campaign in Europe’s most prestigious competition with a thumping 4-1 win over RB Leipzig. With a 95 percent pass completion rate, four successful dribbles, and 10 ground duel wins, Paz had a strong case as the best player on the pitch.<\/span><\/p>\n Como have gotten used to that since signing Paz from Real Madrid in 2024. He’s been instrumental in Como’s rapid rise under Cesc Fabregas, and could have a very bright long-term future at Real, who will reportedly exercise their option to buy him back next summer.<\/span><\/p>\n “Nico Paz has everything,” Fabregas said in August. “He has extraordinary courage, vision and ambition.” Messi has also heaped praise on Paz, claiming he has a “great head” and “understands the game perfectly”, which aptly sums up why he is Argentina’s new great hope.<\/span><\/p>\n However, expectations need to be tempered somewhat. Paz has a good eye for goal, but he will probably never be a prolific goal-scorer like Messi; he’s more of a key cog in the system rather than the main man. That might not be a bad thing, though, because he has the creative qualities to help Argentina become a more balanced attacking side, rather than one that so often relies on one man to make the difference.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Nico Paz has made a subdued start to his Argentina career, scoring only three times…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10043,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"two_page_speed":[],"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1791311465_16-9.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10042\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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