Түүхэн өрсөлдөгчид болох Аргентин болон Английн шигшээ багууд Атланта хотноо болох хагас шигшээгийн тоглолтод учраа таарахаар боллоо.
Аргентины дасгалжуулагч Лионель Скалони энэхүү тоглолтыг улс төрийн бус, зөвхөн хөлбөмбөгийн хүрээнд авч үзэх хэрэгтэй гэдгийг онцолсон юм. Хэдийгээр багийн хөгжөөн дэмжигчид Швейцарийн эсрэг хийсэн тоглолтын үеэр англичуудыг чиглэсэн хурц уриа лоозон байнга хашхирч байсан ч тоглогчид талбайн үйл явдалд төвлөрч байна. Аргентин сүүлийн тоглолтод нэмэлт цагт хоёр гоол оруулж 3:1-ээр хожсон ч багийн хамгаалалт сул, тоглолтын зохион байгуулалт тааруу байгааг Скалони хүлээн зөвшөөрөв.
Англи болон Аргентины шигшээ багууд 2005 оноос хойш анх удаа таарах гэж байна. Лионель Мессигийн хувьд олон улсын карьертаа 205 тоглолт хийсэн ч Английн эсрэг талбайд гарч байгаагүй нь энэхүү тоглолтыг илүү онцгой болгож байна. Өмнөх түүхэн тоглолтуудад Диего Марадонагийн “Бурхны гар” болон Дэвид Бекхэм, Диего Симеоне нарын хоорондох зөрчил зэрэг дурсамжууд энэ удаагийн тулааны өмнөх сэтгэл зүйн дарамтыг улам нэмэгдүүлж байна.
Аргентины хувьд хасагдах шатанд Египет, Кабо-Верде зэрэг багуудтай тун хүнд тоглолтуудыг хийж, Мессигийн ур чадвар болон аз тохиосон шийдвэрүүдийн ачаар ялалт байгуулсаар ирсэн. Английн дасгалжуулагч Томас Тухель Норвегийн эсрэг үзүүлсэн тоглолтдоо сэтгэл хангалуун бус байгаагаа илэрхийлж, багтаа сайжруулах зүйлс их байгааг дурдсан. Хоёр багийн тоглолт мягмар гарагт, орон нутгийн цагаар 15:00 цагт эхэлнэ.
Дэлгэрэнгүй эх сурвалжийг харах
Эх сурвалжийг нээх ↓
Clear your diary, put the kick-off time on the calendar and forget about any thoughts of sitting down to watch the beautiful game.
Argentina against England is much more than a football match. It’s a ferocious and deep-rooted rivalry that’s full of enmity and transcends the sport.
Inevitably, the Falkland Islands will be part of the discourse in the days that follow, even if England and Argentina have more than enough history on the pitch to prevent a 74-day conflict that took place 40 years ago from being a big talking point.
“This is a football game,” Lionel Scaloni, the Argentina coach, pointedly replied when asked if he had a message for the country’s supporters about playing England. “They have an excellent coach, and this is a football game, and that’s all.”
The underlying meaning behind Scaloni’s answer was loud and clear, much like the chant that was reverberating around Arrowhead Stadium after Argentina’s latest dramatic victory –a 3-1 victory over Switzerland, courtesy of two goals in the second half of extra time.
“El que no salta es un ingles” – “He who doesn’t jump is an Englishman” – was the soundtrack of the night in Kansas City. It’s a song that Argentina supporters don’t need an excuse to sing at any time, but the words, and the strength of feeling behind them, resonated even more with next week’s meeting in Atlanta on the horizon.
Argentina is shutting down Arlington at some point tonight pic.twitter.com/N7aikchliX
— Nick Harris (@NickHarrisFWST) June 28, 2026
England and Argentina are familiar foes in one way but not in another. It’s 21 years since they last met, going back to November 2005, in a friendly (a curious word in this respect) that was played in Switzerland.
Aged 18, Lionel Messi was suspended, after being sent off on his international debut against Hungary three months earlier. England, in other words, will be new territory for a man whose international career spans 21 years and 205 matches.
Beckham and Simeone look up towards the referee and await his decision after the England midfielder lashed out while on the floor (Richard Sellers/Sportsphoto/Allstar via Getty Images)
Absence certainly doesn’t make the heart grow fonder with England and Argentina, even if the image of Sir David Beckham and Diego Simeone posing for a photograph alongside one another in Miami a couple of weeks ago suggests that some of the bad blood has been forgotten.
Beckham, in case anyone needs a reminder, was sent off for kicking out at Simeone during an epic 1998 last-16 tie in France that Argentina won on penalties. Four years later, Beckham scored the winning goal against Argentina in a group game in Japan.
Naturally, minds will drift back further, to the 1986 World Cup in Mexico, to Diego Maradona and all that – the goal of the century and, notoriously, a moment of blatant cheating that went unpunished in a quarter-final at the Azteca that Argentina won 2-1.
“I sometimes think I preferred the one with my hand,” Maradona wrote in his autobiography, referring to the ball he punched over the head of the England goalkeeper Peter Shilton to give Argentina the lead. “Why? It was a bit like stealing the wallet of the English.”
Maradona scores the ‘Hand of God’ against England in 1986 (Allsport/Getty Images)
You get the picture by now.
That said, Argentina didn’t need a match against England at this World Cup to stir the senses and to get the adrenaline flowing. Emotion has already carried them a long way – well, that and a genius by the name of Messi.
The World champions are a flawed team in many ways, playing with little semblance of control – Scaloni acknowledged how hard it was for them to string five or six passes together against Switzerland – easily exposed defensively, and relying on individual moments, rather than any sort of team cohesion, to navigate their way to the semi-finals.
“The truth is luck was on our side today, that’s the reality, because they had a player sent off and that’s when the team pushed forward,” Scaloni said, referring to the second yellow card that the Switzerland striker Breel Embolo received in the 72nd minute of a game that had been slipping away from Argentina just prior to that decision.
In the previous round, Argentina were facing elimination with 11 minutes of normal time remaining until a Messi-inspired act of escapology against Egypt. As for the last-32, Cape Verde scored twice against Argentina on an evening when an own goal was required in extra-time to triumph.
In that sense, the knockout stage has clearly been a struggle, and yet there’s also something to admire about the way that Argentina always manage to find a way to win and, more than anything, the visceral energy that connects a football team with a nation.
It’s there on the pitch, it’s there in the stands, and it’s there in the voice of 10-year-old Nacho, the boy who strayed beautifully off-script during an independence day speech in Argentina at his school a few days ago.
“Come on Argentina. Long live the national team. Long live Messi, let’s go for the fourth one!” he shouted, after deciding that the audience had heard enough about freedom from Spanish rule.
The footage, which has gone viral, touched Scaloni in such a way that the Argentina coach felt compelled to mention it when he was asked on the eve of the Switzerland game about his team’s legacy.
“That really moved me,” the Argentina coach said. “It came from the heart, from within. We – the team, the coach, the players – play football to see those things. You don’t play simply to win. It’s incredible that a boy of that age says that, goes against protocol, and then everyone ends up shouting ‘Argentina, Argentina’.
“Well, that’s what we call a legacy, that’s what we want, that tomorrow that boy, or all those who were there, can think that they can be here and give themselves as these players do.”
Twenty-four hours later the overriding emotion for Argentina was relief –a word that Lautaro Martinez, the scorer of a late third goal against Switzerland, used to describe how he was feeling at the final whistle. Others talked about suffering.
The good news for England in that respect is that there are weaknesses to exploit in this Argentina side. The bad news for England is that their display against Norway will make Argentina feel exactly the same way about them.
“I’m not happy with the performance,” Thomas Tuchel, the England head coach, said. “We were lucky today.”
And that, the imperfections of both these teams, and the sense that absolutely anything could happen in Atlanta, is another reason to think that England versus Argentina — at 3pm ET (8pm BST) on Wednesday — should get your undivided attention.
