He can rarely have played better than in the first 45 minutes, when he wrestled control of the vital midfield area from his Manchester United colleague JuanSebastianVeron.
But the real drama is likely to take place in the heart of midfield where Lazio team-mates JuanSebastianVeron and Diego Simeone come up against Dennis Wise and David Beckham.
Five minutes later, Argentina were unfortunate not to be back on level terms when a header from JuanSebastianVeron found Juan Roman Riquelme in space but his shot came off the post.