Loyalty could be fatal to Argentina’s World Cup title defense, says Bertoni

Argentina is a contender to successfully defend its World Cup crown but its chances will be undermined if coach Lionel Scaloni relies too much on the players who triumphed four years ago, Argentine great Daniel Bertoni has said. AFP.

Argentina will once again be led by its talisman Lionel Messi, while 16 other players from the 2022 squad will take part in the tournament co-hosted by the United States, Mexico and Canada.

“I think Argentina is a candidate for the title, given our record of reaching the final six times and winning three of them,” said 71-year-old Bertoni.

But if we believe that we will become champions again because of our name and because of what we have achieved in the past, that is a mistake.

«What can really kill Argentina is if the coach relies too much on the players who won them the crown four years ago.»

Bertoni, who scored in Argentina’s 3-1 win over the Netherlands in the 1978 World Cup final in Buenos Aires and was part of the side that eliminated in the second round four years later, is also concerned about Messi’s fitness.

Messi has been named captain on the expectation that he will have recovered from the hamstring injury that forced him to request a substitution during his club Inter Miami’s Major League Soccer match against Philadelphia last Sunday.

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“He is still a crucial player,” Bertoni said.

“But he’s almost 40 years old, he’ll be 39 on June 24, and you have to see what his physicality is like when he turns up.

«He no longer plays at the highest level club-wise and he will also miss Angel Di Maria, who was crucial after Messi at the 2022 World Cup.»

The passage of time

Bertoni, who played in Europe for clubs such as Sevilla and Napoli after the 1978 triumph, said being defending champions brings its own pressure, as he knows from 1982.

“It’s a lot of pressure,” he said.

“Everything depends on the state of the team and the coach’s ability to bring two realities together: to impress on the players that they are world champions, but that it is imperative that they go out and defend themselves seriously.

“At the 1982 World Cup we thought that because we were world champions we could win it again with Diego Maradona and other new players.

“However, it is always difficult, everyone wants to win.”

The triumph of Bertoni and his teammates, including Daniel Passarella, Mario Kempes and Osvaldo Ardiles, on home soil took place under the gaze of military dictator General Jorge Videla, who had seized power from Isabel Peron in 1976.

The junta’s human rights abuses, including the torture and disappearance of political prisoners, have tarnished the victory for some.

Concerns have been raised about this year’s edition due to some of the Trump administration’s policies.

However, Bertoni says the American team has only one thing on its mind, just as he and his teammates had in 1978.

“Back then we didn’t really know what was going on in the country,” he says.

“We knew that there was a military government that was harmful to the nation, that there was some kind of guerrilla war going on, but we knew nothing about the disappeared, we learned that later over time.

“I think players go to a World Cup to play and to show what they can do.

“We are athletes and as such we are solely responsible for what we do on the field.”

Published on May 29, 2026