Argentine men’s national football team head coach Lionel Scaloni spoke about his team’s mentality after securing the ticket to the 2026 World Cup final, and he was adamant they “don’t feel the burden of responsibility.”
The Albiceleste came back from behind to beat England 2-1 in the semifinals, reaching its second consecutive World Cup final, a result Scaloni is thrilled to share with the fans.
“I hope they can enjoy it,” he said. “Fans ought to thank these players, because this is a team that is hard to explain with words.”
The head coach said the performance against England was a “show of camaraderie, brotherhood and determination to fight ‘til the end,” one that he admits makes him emotional at times.
“When we’re against the odds, they play their best. And when that happens, and the rival hesitates, they smell blood and go all in,” he said.
Scaloni said it’s hard for him to compare this result to the win in the 1986 World Cup quarters, where Argentina beat England 2-1 with two goals by Diego Maradona, the infamous “hand of god” and the “goal of the century.”
“I was too young back then,” he said. “But we thought what we did against Egypt was impossible to repeat, and this has outdone it.”
Trusting the players The Albiceleste head coach admitted it has been a tough World Cup, but insisted that everything is easier when the ball is rolling.
“The worst moment was before confirming the squad,” he said.”We had to trust the players that they’d recover physically, and once we did that, that was the turning point.”
Scaloni is adamant that, having asked the coaching staff to trust them, players like Cristian Cuti Romero, Julián Álvarez, and others who arrived at the tournament with nagging injuries go out thinking they “can’t let their teammates down” after asking to be part of the squad.
‘It made us stronger as a team,” said the coach. “We knew we were who we were and we were going to go all in.”
The head coach insisted that his players don’t feel the pressure and the “weight of responsibility” for representing Argentina in such high-stakes moments as a World Cup.
“I know them, and I know they’re wild people, in the best sense of the word,” he said. “They grew up in places where they weren’t scared of anything, where they were always the best around, and where they had heavy expectations.”
Scaloni says his team has understood that they have to “give it all while the match is being played, because after the final whistle you can’t do anything about it,” and that it makes him proud.
Asked about his relationship with Luis de la Fuente, the Spanish head coach who’ll be his opposite number in the final — under whom he studied to become a coach — the Albiceleste coach said they have a “good relationship” because he admires the Spaniard’s coaching style.
“I think he’s done a brilliant job leading his team, and I’m happy for him,” he said. “On Sunday — I’m sorry — we’re going to try to beat them, but I have the utmost respect for him.”
Cover image: Selección Argentina twitter