\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t Argentina men\u2019s national football team head coach Lionel Scaloni once again highlighted his team\u2019s heart at his press conference after the Albiceleste came back from 2-0 down to beat Egypt 3-2 in the World Cup 2026 round of 16.<\/p>\n
\u201cFootball is this, not just tactics and strategies,\u201d said Scaloni, who recovered his speech after having to pass on the post-match interview because he was too overcome with emotion.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose things are important, no doubt, but if we hadn\u2019t had the heart we had, we would\u2019ve been out,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Scaloni said the team \u201cbelieved they could win\u201d after tying the game 2-2, and that it was his players who decided to push under that \u201cpositive inertia\u201d to wrap up the game before the extra time.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe became a team that wasn\u2019t looking for who was marking who or who was going where; we simply pushed forward,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The Argentina boss insisted that despite the heroic comeback, he never felt his team was playing badly and that the game was under their control. He insisted that he suffers more when he sees that his players \u201cdon\u2019t have the tools [they] need,\u201d as they did against Cape Verde.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe feeling here was that we were going to have a chance\u2014one that could have turned things around,\u201d he added. \u201cWhen you see that your team is doing well and playing the way it should during the game, you feel more at ease.\u201d<\/p>\n
An emotional game for the Lionels Scaloni was very emotional after the match, becoming visibly tear-eyed. He admitted it\u2019s something that \u201chappens more often in the dressing room\u201d and that players jokingly call him \u201cthe Crybaby.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the reason I became a coach, to feel these kinds of emotions after retiring,\u201d he said. \u201cFor me and my staff, it\u2019s incredible. We relive what we felt when we played.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Argentina boss compared the comeback against Egypt with \u201cbig things we\u2019ve gone through\u201d and remarked that the team \u201cwon\u2019t stop pushing no matter what.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Argentina boss placed special focus on team star and captain Lionel Messi, who was playing one of his worst games with the national team before assisting and scoring in the Albiceleste\u2019s 2-2 tie.<\/p>\n
\u201cI tell the guys to look at Leo as an example,\u201d Scaloni said. \u201cIt\u2019s wonderful, because he could have said, \u201cI missed the penalty, and that\u2019s it\u2014it\u2019s over, we\u2019re done,\u201d but he kept asking for the ball again and tried again. It gives me goosebumps.\u201d<\/p>\n
Messi was another who was emotional and tear-eyed at the end of the game, something Scaloni called \u201cimpossible to explain.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think this is why Messi plays football; he loves the game,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
The head coach said it\u2019s not \u201cjust Messi\u201d and that the rest of the team \u201cheld their own\u201d throughout the game in an incredible way.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s what this group is all about,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
According to Scaloni, it was the kind of match that \u201csets the standard\u201d for all the young players who watched the game and want to play for Argentina.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is who we are; if you\u2019re not Argentine, you just won\u2019t get it. When things are going well, they\u2019re going really well, and when things get tough, we give it our all,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n
Cover image: Selecci\u00f3n Argentina Twitter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Argentina men\u2019s national football team head coach Lionel Scaloni once again highlighted his team\u2019s heart at his press conference after the Albiceleste came back from 2-0 down to beat Egypt 3-2 in the World Cup 2026 round of 16. \u201cFootball is this, not just tactics and strategies,\u201d said Scaloni, who recovered his speech after having […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":87192,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5063,66,1373,5309,67,339],"tags":[5307,1368,1371,5308,1369,3576],"class_list":["post-87191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-2026-world-cup","category-football","category-lionel-messi","category-lionel-scaloni","category-sports","category-world-cup-2026","tag-2026-world-cup","tag-football","tag-lionel-messi","tag-lionel-scaloni","tag-sports","tag-world-cup-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}