Scaloni urged players to separate football from politics — then they unfurled a Falklands banner

Argentina manager Lionel Scaloni publicly distanced his team from Falklands politics in the build-up to their World Cup semi-final against England, only for several of his players to contradict him moments after the final whistle, brandishing a banner reading “Las Malvinas son Argentinas” — “The Malvinas (Falkland Islands) belong to Argentina” — following a 2-1 victory.

The geopolitical dimension to any Argentina–England fixture runs deep. In 1982, Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, a British overseas territory, triggering a 74-day conflict that killed 649 Argentine and 255 British military personnel, as well as three islanders. Four years later, the two nations met in the World Cup quarter-finals, where Diego Maradona’s “Hand of God” goal and his subsequent “Goal of the Century” made the match one of the most politically charged in football history. Further meetings followed in 1998 and 2002 before Wednesday’s latest chapter.

Ahead of the semi-final, Scaloni was unambiguous in his desire to keep football and history separate. “The reality is that this is a football match. I can’t mix things up, especially out of respect for what happened so many years ago,” the World Cup-winning coach said. “It was a very sad period in our history, and there isn’t much we can do about it. Things are happening elsewhere in the world, and we criticise the existence of war, so for me to start saying this is anything more than a football match — it seems crazy to me. We certainly remember those people, of course. But we shouldn’t confuse the two.”

Despite those words, the post-match scenes told a different story. Several Argentine players held up the banner in full view of cameras after sealing their place in the final with two late goals. It was not the first such moment of the tournament: following their quarter-final win against Switzerland, the squad was heard chanting “For the Malvinas, for Diego [Maradona] and for Leo [Messi]’s last one.”

Argentina now face potential FIFA disciplinary action. The governing body’s stadium code of conduct contains explicit rules against the display of political messages, and the banner’s visibility during the post-match celebrations leaves the federation exposed to a formal complaint. Whether any sanction would affect Argentina’s participation in the final remains to be seen.