2026 FIFA World Cup: Semifinals - Argentina vs. England

I am so happy for Lautaro. After playing injured and being snake-bitten in 22, he has been immense in these last few games: the game winner against England, the insurance goal against the Swiss, and serving up the game winning assist against Egypt. He works his ass off, does not complain about being sub, and gives his all for the team.

 

Bottomline



In modern time, they have never beaten Argentina at KO stage.

 

Speaking of superstitiousness...

 

Btw the picture of Messi's "foul" is AI generated

Messi made no contacts.

Spence had his won problem with his left leg.

Zero contact here pic.twitter.com/BGu9piDWpb

— Maher🕊🏳️ (@Zeyd2022) July 16, 2026

 

I dont even bother with all those silly ass posts from the begining. If anything, their salty tears gives me energy.

 

This quick and short highlight from FIFA channel shows you that England did absolutely nothing for 100+ minutes outside of their only goal. With slightly better finishings from Alvarez, Mac, Nico and Enzo, this game could have been 6-1.

 

I always like to watch the boards when the bigger nations are losing. You guys are hilarious. Every game I came here for, Egypt, Swiss, England, you guys blasted the coach and were acting like you are out and the whole system and team needs changing blah blah blah. You guys are the most dramatic ungrateful fans I've seen. The coach won you a world cup and copa, and all you guys wanted him gone during all of those games before they came back. For a team that comes back so often it's amazing to see none of you guys believing in the team or coach when you're down in the games.

 

Tbh at this point it's a good luck charm.

There's also the fact that we shouldn't have been in such precarious positions against these opponents in the first place. But whatever works I suppose.

 

We are hard on Scaloni and the group because we know how difficult it is to win. We went from 93 to 21 without a trophy. We had heartbreak after heartbreak. We just want to continue to win not because we are greedy but because we know how difficult it is to get there. We are not a small footballing nation, we are very proud, so just getting to finals at times it’s not enough. I mean, getting to three World Cup Finals out of four editions is something that does not happen regularly. We’re proud of this group even though it may not look like it at times.

 

Maybe because thats the point of having a forum? Not just to be mindless drones? Maybe people want to keep winning? Maybe some criticism is well founded? Maybe because Scaloni does get things wrong like starting Almada like some of us pointed out?

Go sit down little bro

 

We won 4 shootouts under Scaloni. At that point, the players mental strength & Dibu's speciality takes over. At the end of the day , grit & strong mentallity plays huge role in major tournament, and our current crop of players has that, which helped Scaloni to win trophies.

However , Scaloni is still the best international manager ever because 95% of major tournament past winners also went through similar obstacles.

Thats said Scaloni deserves to be criticized when he's wrong. I mean why do you think Paredes boldly schooled him againts Switzerland...

 

The point of a forum is to discuss footy. A lot of what was said about Scaloni was nonsense. That he got lucky, he isnt a good coach. blah blah. It was really over the top for a mere discussion imo.

Scaloni is a saint and bar Messi he deserves all the credit.

 

I disagree. There is luck involved and Scaloni has flaws. 2 things can be true, he can be the greatest coach we had as well.

 

I will say that the Spain France game. The early penalty settled Spain nerves and led to a pattern that suited them as well. If France had scored first well it could have been entirely a different result.

Sometimes the very small things can have a large effect as proven in science.

 

Which team doesn't have luck and which coach doesn't have flaws?

Spain for example, had Nuno Mendes, Courtois and Saliba injured in each of their respective games. You can't get luckier than that.

Footy Discussion needs to be balanced with praise and constructive criticism and in this forum, it's negative and not much credit given from what I've seen so far.

 

I agree with you every coach has luck. Ancelloti is like 90% luck for example lol. I think we (speaking for what I read here not just me) usually give balanced perspective on changes that make sense and where Scaloni can be slow or stubborn to accept and a bit Slow to adapt with subs (again we have had much worse) For me biggest criticism was Almada.

And if you read in game comment I never lost faith in the team even after going down

 

"our current crop of players has that, which helped Scaloni to win trophies."

This is incorrect, it goes both ways. Man management is extremely important at the highest level and Scaloni brought this family vibe that helped foster a unity in the team

"I mean why do you think Paredes boldly schooled him againts Switzerland"

discussions between players and coaches always happen in football where players provide their point of view.... surely you must know that. I call it great man management from Scaloni in getting other people's point of view. Ancelotti did the same in the CL 2024 Final.

 

I disagree with "give balanced perspective of changes that make sense", all I've seen are criticisms vs Scaloni (most of them are well deserved). When he was great vs England, I've seen only 5% of praise given to him in this forum. That's not balanced at all.

Ancelloti is another topic that we can get to, but I disagree that his success is based on luck lol.

 

Luck do played huge role and so does having great players that knows how to turn up the heat in high stake matches.

Scolari with the 4R won the WC 2002 smoothly. In 2014, his team looked even worse than Sampa's team. The only reason he even got to semi in 2014 was because they got Colombia & Chile .

 

Every winning team needs great players and luck, even greats like SAF and Guardiola and etc.

But what you guys are saying is that Scaloni's success is based on all luck and great players only.

 

Lately, I don't think that's the case, but happy to be proven wrong.