{"id":193821,"date":"2025-06-18T07:34:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-18T07:34:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/193821\/"},"modified":"2025-06-18T07:34:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-18T07:34:10","slug":"british-and-irish-lions-vs-argentina-santiago-carreras-eyes-upset","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/193821\/","title":{"rendered":"British and Irish Lions vs Argentina: Santiago Carreras eyes upset"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\">Santiago Carreras is preparing for a match 20 years in the making.<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">For Argentina, who are not part of the British and Irish Lions touring rotation, the scarcity value of Friday&#8217;s fixture in Dublin is sky high.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;You might play this game once in your life &#8211; it is so special,&#8221; the 27-year-old tells BBC Sport.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Everyone in the team is looking forward to it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The last big-cat tear-up between the Lions and Pumas was back in 2005, when a last-gasp Jonny Wilkinson penalty spared the New Zealand-bound tourists defeat and <a href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/sport1\/hi\/rugby_union\/international\/4571967.stm\" class=\"ssrcss-k8mrr8-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">secured a 25-25 draw.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Forget colour television &#8211; the handful of other meetings between the two teams were before even colour photography was much of a thing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Never, though, have Argentina had such a good chance of victory.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The current crop of Pumas are ranked fifth in the world.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">They have beaten three of the four teams above them in the past 12 months.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Ireland, the only higher-ranked team to avoid recent defeat against Argentina, were pushed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/rugby-union\/articles\/c5y5468nwr9o\" class=\"ssrcss-k8mrr8-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">all the way in November<\/a> in their most recent visit to Dublin&#8217;s Aviva Stadium.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">And the Lions are still pulling together their squad, with a number &#8211; most noticeably the 12-strong Leinster contingent &#8211; involved in last weekend&#8217;s domestic finals.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Ominously, Carreras says there is more to come under the leadership of Felipe Contepomi, who captained the 2005 Argentina side to that draw in Cardiff, and took over as head coach from Michael Cheika after a run to the 2023 Rugby World Cup semi-finals.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I think we are still building our game and our culture,&#8221; said Carreras.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We showed a really good face on the field over the past year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The most similar thing [between Cheika and Contepomi] is the mindset to win and to play.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We want to back ourselves to play and do the things we talk about.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The mindset of the group internally is really competitive &#8211; that is the best thing.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Santiago Carreras is preparing for a match 20 years in the making. For Argentina, who are not part&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193822,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4102],"tags":[4151,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-193821","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114703215035301928","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193821\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}