. Argentina head coach Lionel Scaloni has rejected criticism of his side’s performance at the 2026 FIFA World Cup and says his team has made it to the semi-finals on his own. <\/p>\n
“The team is fully prepared ahead of the semi-final against England and the aim is to take another step towards a second successive World Cup title,” he said.<\/p>\n
Argentina will face England in the second semi-final in Atlanta on Wednesday. The winner of the match will face Spain in the final on July 19 at the New York-New Jersey Stadium. <\/p>\n
In the pre-<\/p>\n
match press conference, Scaloni said that the performance of the team that reached the semi-finals after winning 6 consecutive matches cannot be called weak. “The team hasn’t played as bad as people say. If we’ve come this far, we’ve definitely done something right. “<\/p>\n
Scaloni praised his players, saying they had led Argentina to successes over the last few years. “I’m thankful to my players. They have won us three titles and now they have taken us to the semi-finals of the World Cup. Now we are just one step away from the final and will put in all our efforts for it. Argentina defeated Algeria, Austria and Jordan in the group stage to reach the last four after defeating Cape Verde, Egypt and Switzerland in the knockout stage. Argentina overcame a 2-0 deficit to beat Egypt in extra time against Cape Verde and Switzerland. <\/p>\n
“<\/p>\n
At this stage of the World Cup, results are more important than style,” Scaloni said. “A month ago, if anyone offered me a chance to reach the semi-finals of the World Cup, I would have accepted it immediately. Now we are in the semi-finals, so winning is more important than where the team is at. “<\/p>\n
According to him, it doesn’t matter if the team is physically tired or not and all the players are excited and ready for the semi-finals. This will be Argentina’s fourth consecutive World Cup semi-final. Argentina reached the last four in 2014, 2018 and 2022. Under Scaloni’s leadership, the team won the Copa America in 2021 and 2024 and the World Cup in 2022. <\/p>\n
Scaloni said the 1982 Falklands War was being linked to the match against England, but it should not be linked to football.<\/p>\n
“This is a very sad chapter in our history. We have to respect that, but it’s just a football game. It is not right to mix war and sports. England beat Norway 2-1 in extra time to reach the semi-finals of the FIFA World Cup 2018. Thomas Tuchel’s side will be aiming to reach the World Cup final for the first time since 1966, while Argentina will be looking to strengthen their campaign by winning back-to-back World Cups. ANI<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
. Argentina head coach Lionel Scaloni has rejected criticism of his side’s performance at the 2026 FIFA World Cup and says his team has made it to the semi-finals on his own. “The team is fully prepared ahead of the semi-final against England and the aim is to take another step towards a second successiveContinue reading “We reached the semi-finals on our own: Argentina coach Scaloni”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":76094,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[147],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-samachar-en"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/screenshot-2026-07-15-121514_75650363.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76099"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76099\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76100,"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76099\/revisions\/76100"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/media\/76094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}