Lionel Scaloni had barely sat down before he admitted the obvious. Argentina had caused its own supporters unnecessary suffering. Still, the manager was in no mood to apologize for the chaos. What he saw in Atlanta, he said, was something bigger than a comeback win over Egypt, bigger even than a simple qualification. It was a testament to the kind of team Argentina is, a team that never gives up.
“We made our people suffer even though we didn’t play a bad game,” Scaloni said after the 3-2 victory. «I’m a coach for moments like this. The caliber of what we saw today goes beyond just pushing through. We would be out if we didn’t fight.»
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Scaloni insisted Argentina had not been as bad as the scoreline suggested at one point. Egypt, he said, were “an excellent team” who made good use of their openings, but he pointed to the chances his own side had created long before the late surge. “We had three or four clear chances and if we had scored no one would be talking about it,” he said. “We had to dig.”
Even when Argentina fell two goals behind and the stadium tightened in fear, Scaloni said he never felt the match had gone out of reach. “You feel worried when you don’t have control, but today we did,” he said. “I saw the game going our way and we created chances.” It was, in effect, an argument that Argentina’s suffering did not stem from inferiority, but from waste.
The emotional center of Scaloni’s evening, however, was Lionel Messi. The captain had missed a penalty and for a while looked like the tragic figure in Argentina’s elimination story. Instead, he became one of the authors of its salvation, and Scaloni spoke of him with awe. “Messi is a role model for all players,” he said. “He missed a penalty but he still asks for the ball and keeps going.”
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He did not juxtapose the ‘epic’ evening with the World Cup final in Qatar, but suggested it belonged to the same emotional universe. Messi, he said, “lives football for moments like these,” and Argentina wanted him to continue enjoying it while he still could.
Scaloni made sure the story wasn’t just about him or his captain. “There is no point in saying we win because of my actions,” he said. «We have great players and you use them when you need them. That’s not genius. The players make the difference. And that goes for the whole team.»
Published on July 8, 2026
