{"id":39358,"date":"2026-07-15T08:28:45","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T08:28:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eplvip.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/15\/argentina-national-team-coach-talks-about-falklands-rivalry-ahead-of-world-cup-match-against-england-soccer-sports\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T08:28:45","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T08:28:45","slug":"argentina-national-team-coach-talks-about-falklands-rivalry-ahead-of-world-cup-match-against-england-soccer-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eplvip.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/15\/argentina-national-team-coach-talks-about-falklands-rivalry-ahead-of-world-cup-match-against-england-soccer-sports\/","title":{"rendered":"Argentina national team coach talks about Falklands rivalry ahead of World Cup match against England | Soccer | Sports"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"photo changeSpace\">\n<p class=\"withoutCaption\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"zoomEnabled\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.images.express.co.uk\/img\/dynamic\/67\/1200x712\/secondary\/atlanta-georgia-lionel-scaloni-head-coach-of-argentina-attends-a-press-conference-one-day-7041259.jpg?r=1784099436487\" alt=\"Lionel Scaloni had no interest in getting involved in the commotion over the Falkland Islands.\" title=\"Lionel Scaloni had no interest in getting involved in the commotion over the Falkland Islands.\" width=\"590\" height=\"393\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"newsCaption\">Lionel Scaloni had no interest in getting involved in the commotion over the Falkland Islands. <span class=\"caption\">(Image: Getty)<\/span><span class=\"magnifier\" data-img=\"https:\/\/cdn.images.express.co.uk\/img\/dynamic\/67\/1200x712\/secondary\/atlanta-georgia-lionel-scaloni-head-coach-of-argentina-attends-a-press-conference-one-day-7041259.jpg?r=1784099436487\"\/><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"text-description\">\n<p>Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni has called on his players to focus purely on soccer when they face England in the World Cup semi-finals. The accumulation of matches has reopened old wounds between both teams, and the Falkland Islands have become a hot topic. At the beginning of the tournament, Argentina players were filmed singing a chorus about the island after their victory over Egypt.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"text-description\">\n<p>The two countries famously went to war in 1982 when Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands over a longstanding claim of sovereignty. They were quickly defeated by the British, who succeeded in retaking the island in just 10 weeks, forcing Argentina to surrender. Four decades later, many Argentines still believe the Falklands should be controlled, even though the island&#8217;s population overwhelmingly supports remaining a British overseas territory.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"text-description\">\n<p>Scaloni was asked about the tensions surrounding the Falkland Islands in his press conference on Tuesday, but refused to get drawn into the debate and instead urged his players to stay focused on beating England.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"text-description\">\n<p>&#8220;The reality is that this is a soccer match,&#8221; said the Argentina national team head coach. \u201cYou can&#8217;t mix things up, especially out of respect for what happened many years ago.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"text-description\">\n<p>&#8220;It was a very sad period in our history. There&#8217;s not much we can do about it. That&#8217;s the reality. It&#8217;s a football game. There&#8217;s no getting around that.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"text-description\">\n<p>&#8220;It seems crazy to me to start saying this is more than just a football match when things are happening in other parts of the world and we are criticizing the existence of war.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"text-description\">\n<p>&#8220;Of course we remember those people, but this is a football game and we shouldn&#8217;t confuse the two.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"text-description\">\n<p>After the reigning European champions defeated France on Tuesday night, the semi-final winner will face Spain in New Jersey this weekend.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"text-description\">\n<p>England, who have not won a World Cup since 1966, are aiming to reach their first final since winning the trophy on home soil.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"photo changeSpace\">\n<p class=\"withoutCaption\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"zoomEnabled\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.images.express.co.uk\/img\/dynamic\/67\/1200x712\/secondary\/goose-green-falkland-islands-a-general-view-of-goose-green-falkland-islands-on-february-2-2012-7041267.jpg?r=1784099442065\" alt=\"Islands are a hot topic ahead of the semi-finals\" title=\"Islands are a hot topic ahead of the semi-finals\" width=\"590\" height=\"393\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"newsCaption\">Islands are a hot topic ahead of the semi-finals <span class=\"caption\">(Image: Getty)<\/span><span class=\"magnifier\" data-img=\"https:\/\/cdn.images.express.co.uk\/img\/dynamic\/67\/1200x712\/secondary\/goose-green-falkland-islands-a-general-view-of-goose-green-falkland-islands-on-february-2-2012-7041267.jpg?r=1784099442065\"\/><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"text-description\">\n<p>Although Argentina won all six matches at this World Cup, there was still criticism regarding their approach and play.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"text-description\">\n<p>Scaloni hit back at his critics, declaring: &#8220;The team hasn&#8217;t played as badly as people say. We must have done the right things to reach this stage.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"text-description\">\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m grateful to the players. They led us to three titles and now we&#8217;re in the semi-finals again. We&#8217;re one step away and we&#8217;ll do everything we can to get there.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"text-description\">\n<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t care how we feel. We&#8217;re in the World Cup semi-finals. A month and a half ago I would have signed this without hesitation.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"text-description\">\n<p>&#8220;It doesn&#8217;t matter if we&#8217;re tired or not because we&#8217;re incredibly excited. The goal is to get here by any means necessary and here we are.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"text-description\">\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re doing well and we&#8217;re very excited. We&#8217;ve been talking about things that we think we need to improve on. We&#8217;re playing a great team and I hope we can get through.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"text-description\">\n<p>England have not played Argentina in a competitive game since 2002. The most recent encounter was in 2005, when the Three Lions achieved a 3-2 friendly victory over the South American nation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"text-description\">\n<p>Express sports on FB! Get all the best sports news and more on our Facebook page.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.express.co.uk\/sport\/football\/2229264\/Argentina-England-Falkland-Islands-World-Cup\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lionel Scaloni had no interest in getting involved in the commotion over the Falkland Islands. (Image: Getty) Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni has called on his players to focus purely on soccer when they face England in the World Cup semi-finals. The accumulation of matches has reopened old wounds between both teams, and the Falkland Islands<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39359,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-39358","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-matches"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Argentina national team coach talks about Falklands rivalry ahead of World Cup match against England | Soccer | Sports - EPL VIP \u2013 Latest English Premier League News &amp; Updates<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/eplvip.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/15\/argentina-national-team-coach-talks-about-falklands-rivalry-ahead-of-world-cup-match-against-england-soccer-sports\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Argentina national team coach talks about Falklands rivalry ahead of World Cup match against England | Soccer | Sports - EPL VIP \u2013 Latest English Premier League News &amp; Updates\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Lionel Scaloni had no interest in getting involved in the commotion over the Falkland Islands. 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The accumulation of matches has reopened old wounds between both teams, and the Falkland Islands\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/eplvip.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/15\/argentina-national-team-coach-talks-about-falklands-rivalry-ahead-of-world-cup-match-against-england-soccer-sports\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"EPL VIP \u2013 Latest English Premier League News &amp; Updates\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-07-15T08:28:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/cdn.images.express.co.uk\/img\/dynamic\/67\/1200x712\/secondary\/atlanta-georgia-lionel-scaloni-head-coach-of-argentina-attends-a-press-conference-one-day-7041259.jpg?r=1784099436487\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin_ok9yktt6\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin_ok9yktt6\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/eplvip.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/15\/argentina-national-team-coach-talks-about-falklands-rivalry-ahead-of-world-cup-match-against-england-soccer-sports\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/eplvip.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/15\/argentina-national-team-coach-talks-about-falklands-rivalry-ahead-of-world-cup-match-against-england-soccer-sports\/\",\"name\":\"Argentina national team coach talks about Falklands rivalry ahead of World Cup match against England | Soccer | Sports - EPL VIP \u2013 Latest English Premier League News &amp; Updates\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/eplvip.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/eplvip.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/15\/argentina-national-team-coach-talks-about-falklands-rivalry-ahead-of-world-cup-match-against-england-soccer-sports\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/eplvip.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/15\/argentina-national-team-coach-talks-about-falklands-rivalry-ahead-of-world-cup-match-against-england-soccer-sports\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/eplvip.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/7041260.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-07-15T08:28:45+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/eplvip.com\/#\/schema\/person\/6b2ade58a96ab056f743f12490573ae9\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/eplvip.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/15\/argentina-national-team-coach-talks-about-falklands-rivalry-ahead-of-world-cup-match-against-england-soccer-sports\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/eplvip.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/15\/argentina-national-team-coach-talks-about-falklands-rivalry-ahead-of-world-cup-match-against-england-soccer-sports\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/eplvip.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/15\/argentina-national-team-coach-talks-about-falklands-rivalry-ahead-of-world-cup-match-against-england-soccer-sports\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/eplvip.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/7041260.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/eplvip.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/7041260.jpg\",\"width\":1200,\"height\":630},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/eplvip.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/15\/argentina-national-team-coach-talks-about-falklands-rivalry-ahead-of-world-cup-match-against-england-soccer-sports\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/eplvip.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Argentina national team coach talks about Falklands rivalry ahead of World Cup match against England | Soccer | Sports\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/eplvip.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/eplvip.com\/\",\"name\":\"EPL VIP \u2013 Latest English Premier League News &amp; Updates\",\"description\":\"EPL VIP is your ultimate source for all things related to the English Premier League. 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