Argentina national team coach Lionel Scaloni: “I don’t read social media”

No Argentine journalist has guts to ask him about his cowardly strategy in the final and his reluctance to use exciting young players? Besides, I’m getting an impression that whether he stays on or leaves depends on his choice. That should not be the case. AFA should thank him for his great service and give him the opportunity to resign. His continuation will produce very bad or mediocre results in upcoming days.

I’ve been saying it FOREVER, social media is the scourge of earth

🚨🇦🇷 𝗕𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗞𝗜𝗡𝗚: AFA is considering taking LEGAL ACTION over the misinformation campaign against Argentina and their players during the World Cup.

There could be defamation lawsuits that would focus on false allegations, manipulated or unverified images, and accusations made without evidence.

The Argentina Football Federation will go ALL IN. They will not only target big media outlets, but also accounts on X, IG, and many more outlets.

AFA legal team is collecting evidence, posts, and other material.

— @LANACION via @AlbicelesteTalk

On a different note, I’m not one to easily believe in conspiracy theories. My issue with anything World Cup related is that FIFA and UEFA and CONMEBOL and the AFA are known to be a super corrupt organization. Their leaders keep getting fired and serving jail sentences for bribery and other crimes. And right now Tapia is under investigation for money laundering, etc.

It makes sense to me that there could be outside pressure on the officials or the team to lose. I’m not sure how they could threaten the team, but it’s people that are potentially committing big crimes. It’s not crazy to think that they could put pressure on players, coaches or referees. It would be easy to threaten families, etc.

I’m not saying I know that this happened for sure. The team might have just played badly. But the corruption is already there. It’s not a huge leap to having it affect the players.

Just want to share my thoughts and feelings with everyone here.

Was Spain deserved to win in the final? No doubt about that. Nothing reminded me the true Argentina we all know in this final.

But, some things have to be mentioned, things that surprisingly were not being mentioned by fellow members here, only up to now by a few ones and they are facts not excuses.

The amount of hate Argentina was constantly receiving by the media, before the start, throughout the world cup and even now, is totally absurd! I am 47 years old, experienced quite many world cups and i have never witnessed such hate by the media against a team before! It was purely a well fixed hate campaign which even continues up to now!

Media praises France for ending fourth and England third in the tournament respectively and this could seem normal as top 4 spots can be seen as a successful campaign for any team, being a powerhouse or not. But what is absurd is that at the same time, they are bashing the runners up ignoring what Argentina have accomplished those 7 years, ignoring the fact that this team has written history not just reached a wc final, history that no other team managed before. We won two back to back copa americas, won the finalissima, won the previous world cup and we managed to reach the final again.
Argentina was not only trying to win the world cup, Argentina tried to do the unthinkable in football modern era, to win back to back the world cup. On the top of that, Argentina tried to do that with half of the team suffering from injuries and still we made the final again. Out of the four last worls cups, we have made three finals and we won one. This is a legendary achievement that no European team had never achieved! But still, this team does not receive the respect and aknowledge they trully deserve, they receive hate instead! If any of those so called European powerhouses had ever achieved what we did in those 7 years, they would have been talking about all time legendary accomplishments.
The reason is simple. They could never be able to reach what we have done, therefore they threw all their jealousy, they were so envy about us that they fired a whole campaign of hate against us.

Spain went in 2014 world cup as world champions only for being kicked out from the group stage and being humiliated by Netherlands 5-1 but was never been a big deal.
Argentina came as world champions in this world cup, won every other international trophy, reached the final of the world cup for second consecutive time only to be treated with disrespect!
Hypocricy at its best!
I dont know what happened in the final. I know that half of the team was suffering from injuries even before the start of the world cup. We didn’t come in a good physical condition in this world cup, we were playing at maximum 70 to 80% of our strength in every game, the coaching stuff was forcing to make rotetion in every game, we came in a bad shape, but still, once again, we gave foorball the most memorable and thrilling games of this world cup, the games againt capo verde, Egypt and England.
We gave everyrhing ugainst England and we reminded everyone who Argentina trully is, but notging was left for the final, we were physically and mentally exhausted unfortunately.

Finally, Scaloni must stay. He has nothing more to prove, he is a national hero, deserves all the respect and our love and has earned the right to stay as much as he desires. He just needs to take a breath, relax and try to rebuilt with piece because i believe that we have the talent and the mentallity to rise and dominate again.

VAMOS ARGENTINA CARAJO!

Some people in the last few comments sections have talked about the Malvinas banner that was displayed. I know it may be hard to understand, but I lived in Argentina and spoke to someone who was in the military for the Malvinas war. The government at the time was horrible, corrupt and killing dissidents, so it’s easy for us to assume that the people of Argentina would hate everything that government did. But the reality is that whether or not the government at the time was good, they were actual Argentine soldiers that went to fight against England. They fought and died. All Argentines feel that as a lost war.

They also feel like the Malvinas shouldn’t be part of the UK. Now, you can argue whether the islands should be their own country or part of Argentina. And you can argue that the current Argentine government could have bad reasons for wanting the Malvinas. But it’s just normal patriotism for normal Argentines to want the Malvinas to be part of their country. That’s all that the players were showing. The team feels like they represent the best of Argentina and they feel a connection with the people. Bringing up the Malvinas is a normal patriotic thing. I am from the United States and it’s still normal to diss the UK for the war of independence that was fought in the 1700s. Why can’t it be normal for Argentines to diss the UK for the Malvinas war from the 1980’s?

If we play our football, we would have won this match. Scaloni is a loser and he chose to play low block against Spain. They are good but not all time good.

Sergio “Kun” Agüero revealed in a livestream that Messi and the Argentina coach did clash after the World Cup final loss to Spain and also talked about how Messi’s teammates let him down.

“I honestly didn’t like how things ended in the final with the national team, especially with Messi having a disagreement with Lionel Scaloni. Messi told me he had a clash with Scaloni over the coach’s tactics and how he handled the match.

Messi told him there was no way they could sit back and let Spain have all the ball because they were going to lose that way, but the coach still insisted on playing a low block while waiting for a counter.

When is his resignation coming? this clown wud never improve, just fire him for gods sake.

sick of his nonsense this entire wc.

History will remember that Messi was a world cup winner, He is in an elite league. Even if someone wins 5 europen cups or champions leage, it cannot be compared to world cup. People don’t rate De Stefano nor will they rate ronaldo at same level as Pele or Maradona or Messi. Records are ment to be broken, but the no. of trophies that messi has that will be difficult to beat for a long time. Im happy that Messi was able to do this for Argentina.
Its difficult for non European team to win world cup coz many European teams have most of their players from select few clubs where they have been playing every week from a very young age. That is how Spain benefits from barcelona. Even with all that no one comes close to having the level of passion and love for the shirt that Argentina has. Also europe has been stealing african talent, the way things are going, in next 20 years we might see only people of african origin in European national teams.

So Messi who will be 43 in the next world cup told the players he probably won’t make in 2030 and the players were so surprised that a 43 year old will not play in the world cup and started crying and got depressive and played without motivation.
what a ridiculous story!
Something surely happened but we don’t know what, I also find it strange that the team didn’t travel together back home.

I was wondering if it is true that no family members were present in the stadium? I was so focused on what happened on the pitch and so desperate about everything that I didn’t pay attention.

To everyone asking what was said in the dressing room: https://www.givemesport.com/explanation-lionel-messi-strange-world-cup-dressing-room-speech-argentina/

According to Argentine journalist Hernán Castillo, the emotional atmosphere in the dressing room may have been because Messi told the team that this was likely to be his final World Cup game.

“Amid all the speculation, a possible explanation has emerged for the seemingly sombre mood of the World Cup finalists. Indeed, trusted Argentine journalist Hernán Castillo—who has previously reported for ESPN—took to social media to explain that things were so emotional because Messi had confessed it was likely his final game.”

How could a team that played so brilliantly in the semi-final suddenly seem to forget how to play in the final? Before every match leading up to the final, the families of the Argentine players and the federation’s president were present, yet, strangely, they were absent from the final. Why? Argentina lost one of their most important centre-backs to injury in the first half, and another centre-back was injured in the second half. Why did this happen?

Throughout the match, I never felt that Argentina were playing with the determination to win. Instead, they committed numerous fouls, and it almost seemed as though they were inviting a red card. Lautaro Martínez was hardly seen on camera after a certain point in the match, which I found unusual.

In my opinion, the controversy began after Argentina won the semi-final, when the players celebrated with a banner referring to the Falkland Islands as “Islas Malvinas.” Around the same time, Argentina’s Vice President described the British as “pirates.” I believe these events attracted significant attention.

To me, the 1986 World Cup was more than just a football tournament. Argentina won it after the Falklands War, and they also reached the 1990 final. I believe many people were unwilling to see Diego Maradona win back-to-back World Cups. Likewise, I feel that in 2026 there were those who did not want Lionel Messi to become a back-to-back World Cup winner. In my view, FIFA often appears unable to remain completely independent of European football’s influence.

I also believe that South American football has repeatedly challenged Europe’s so-called “total football,” particularly through players like Messi, whose performances have humbled many of Europe’s greatest teams. In both the 1990 and 2026 finals, I believe the red-card decisions were highly controversial.

I keep wondering what might have happened if Argentina had won the final. Perhaps the players would once again have displayed a banner supporting the Malvinas/Falkland Islands, drawing global attention to what many Argentines see as an unresolved legacy of colonialism.

Before the final, a video of Messi went viral in which he encouraged everyone to focus solely on football. Even so, Argentina appeared unusually aggressive throughout the match. To me, this was not entirely unprecedented.

The 1998 World Cup final also remains mysterious in the eyes of many fans. Brazil, who had been outstanding throughout the tournament, suddenly looked unrecognisable in the final, which France won. One of the biggest talking points from that match was Ronaldo Nazário’s illness just hours before kick-off. Had Brazil won that final, they would have secured back-to-back World Cup titles and later had the opportunity to win three consecutive World Cup.

Something was definitely cooking in the dressing room before the match. The dressing room video was not of a team roaring to take on the European champions.