With critics continuing to target reigning football world champions Argentina, alleging that they were shown favouritism in the 2026 FIFA World Cup after La Albiceleste reached their second successive final, captain Lionel Messi broke his silence, saying “nothing was handed” to them.
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The three-time champions, who have won all their games in the tournament so far and will meet Spain in the final in New Jersey, USA, on Sunday (July 19), have been facing accusations over perceptions that tournament officials showed them undue favouritism by means of refereeing and even by placing them against weaker opponents.
Messi hails Argentina’s comeback capabilities
The 39-year-old star, who is the joint highest scorer in the tournament so far with eight goals, rejected the allegations, saying Argentina’s ability to come back into matches with dying-moment strikes is the result of championship pedigree and nothing else, Associated Press reported.
Argentina have won all their knockout games with goals scored in the final moments of matches, be it in regular time or extra time. They won 3-2 against Cape Verde in the Round of 32; 3-2 against Egypt in the Round of 16; 3-1 against Switzerland in the quarterfinals, and 2-1 against England in the semifinals, with their winners in each game coming late into the game, sometimes in extra time.
Against England in the highly anticipated semifinal in Atlanta, USA, Argentina were trailing 0-1 but scored twice in the final seven minutes to storm into the final. Messi assisted both goals in the comeback that ended the Three Lions’ dream of making the World Cup final after six decades.
Argentina’s controversial games against Egypt, Switzerland
Argentina’s most tense moment came in the controversial game against Egypt when they came back after trailing 0-2 with 11 minutes left in the regulation time. The African side was furious with the refereeing in the game, with its coach Hossam Hassan directly accusing FIFA of favouring Messi and his team.
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Controversy erupted in the game against Switzerland, too, who felt the Argentinians had the officials’ backing. Soon after the Swiss made it 1-1 in the 67th minute, Argentina’s Leandro Paredes was shown a yellow card for tackling Breel Embolo.
But video review showed that the latter fell before Peredes made contact with him. Embolo was shown the card instead, and since it was the second yellow card for him in the game, he was given marching orders, leaving the Europeans with 10 players to face Argentina. Switzerland coach Murat Yakin called it unacceptable.
These games fuelled criticism that Argentina were being given unjust backing to become the world champions once again. Messi responded, saying his team has been the best over the past four years, irrespective of what one felt or said.
‘We are among top two teams again’
“Once again, we’ve established ourselves among the top two teams in the world. That proves that everything we’ve done is no fluke and that nothing was handed to us,” he was quoted as saying by the AP report.
“Reaching two consecutive World Cup finals is something very few achieve, and this group did it,” he said. “If we had lost to England, there would have been people coming out to spout some nonsense, but we didn’t give them the chance.”
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Argentina won the 2022 edition beating France in final. They had made the finals of the 1986 and 1990 editions also under Diego Maradona’s captaincy.
Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni was less touched by the ‘help’ allegations and said in the press conference after the semi-final that such talks would always exist and they didn’t bother him.
“With VAR today, it’s very difficult to get help; it would have to be glaringly obvious. We knew there was no help,” the report quoted him as saying. In previous press meetings, Scaloni also advised journalists not to consume too much social media.
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