A video has been released of the Argentina national team talk from the locker room to the pitch for the World Cup final.
Lionel Messi led the Argentina national team onto the pitch for the World Cup final and walking behind him were Emiliano Martínez, Cristian Romero, Lisandro Martínez and Nicolás Tagliafico. Messi tells them at the start:
“Think about playing, nothing more. Calmness, forget everything else.”
In the video, Lisandro Martínez tells Nicolás Tagliafico:
“Come on Nico, you’re going to dominate. You’re going to dominate the entire match.”
And Emiliano Martinez says:
“Today is my day, today will be for the history books.”
El video completo de la arenga de Messi y el camino hacia la cancha:
“Vamos Nico, lo vas a borrar todo el partido”.
“Vamos Dibu, firme en todas”.
“Hoy es mi día, hoy será para la historia”.No parecen frases de un grupo que saliera a perder. pic.twitter.com/FqqZtfXpV5
— Los Herederos de Alberdi (@LHDA16) July 21, 2026
I just analyzed the match..now I understand we were completely outsmarted by the ‘tactics’ not by the bad performance of our players or the other issues.. Scaloni failed against his master.
It was like a chess board intelligence perfection Spain coach fielded the players. Scaloni was his student, so he knew all of Scaloni’s ideas.
Whenever our players got the ball Spain cut the passing options with almost perfection. We would have tried different tactics when match progressed. But..we didn’t have proper players to counter this.
Simeone was not ready and Nico was not upto the standard we needed..!
Scaloni didn’t plan a replacement for Di Maria. We needed fast wingers with ball control, dribble and score. Not needed the world class..but at least with these skills. We could have tried the long ball continously and unsettled their shape/tactics, that would have opened up the opportunities for us.
I don’t know who can do that role of dimaria.
We have to try Prestianni, Garnacho(but attitude problem), Simeone(hopefully he improves, good for pressing),
From the new boys..Subiabre and Maher Carrizo (I have high hope on them).
Any other..?
Long ball to fast wingers, Alvarez sticking on CBs than doing all the dirty work,…it would have been a different story.
Subiabre is too ordinary. I watched him closely in the last U20 World Cup. Carrizzo has potential. I also noticed some good moments from Santino Adino but it seems he moved to Greece?
Anyone knows how does Alvaro Montoro do lately? He was very highly rated as I remember.
How do you even have the nerve to go back and watch that disastrous game again? Honestly, I don’t think there’s a single thing from that match I could bring myself to rewatch. Even the 2014 final had moments I still go back to, even if they make me feel miserable. But 2026? Absolutely nothing. It was a complete disaster.
Not even a single shot on target, and then having to watch so many of our players lose their heads and act like thugs. It was, without a doubt, the most painful Argentina match I’ve ever watched.
Part of me wants to rewatch it just to understand exactly what went wrong, but I honestly don’t have the stomach for it. Still, thanks for putting in the effort to analyze it. From what I remember after my first viewing, I pretty much agree with your conclusions.
One thing we really lacked was a player who could make line breaking runs behind Spain’s high defensive line. Di Maria’s goal against Brazil in the 2021 Copa America final is the perfect example of the type of movement we were missing. We desperately lacked quality off the ball movement. In that particular game, I actually think Lautaro would have been a better starter than Julian Alvarez because he’s much better at making those runs.
I remember Nico making a few of those movements early in the match and getting into some dangerous positions, but his final pass just wasn’t good enough. We never really managed to exploit the space behind their defense after that.
I also think not facing a team like Spain at any point during the Scaloni era put us at a disadvantage. We simply had no experience dealing with a team that presses that aggressively while holding such a high defensive line.
I honestly believe we’d put up a much better fight if we played them again in the Finalissima because we’d now have the experience from the World Cup final. In fact, I think if the Finalissima had been played before the World Cup, we would have performed much better in the final itself. Not agreeing that match was a huge mistake by the AFA, in my opinion.
FIFA and the United States worked together to ensure Argentina lost.