Follow all the action as England take on Argentina in their World Cup semi-final.<\/p>\n
Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni insisted the heavyweight World Cup semi-final against England was “just a football game” after his side beat Switzerland 3-1 in the last eight.<\/p>\n
Alexis Mac Allister put the defending champions ahead early in Kansas City on Saturday but Dan Ndoye scored a deserved equaliser midway through the second half.<\/p>\n
Disaster struck minutes later for Switzerland when Breel Embolo was shown a second yellow card for simulation, reducing them to 10 men.<\/p>\n
Julian Alvarez broke Swiss hearts in the 112th minute before substitute Lautaro Martinez added a last-gasp third.<\/p>\n
Argentina now turn their attention to the semi-final in Atlanta, which promises to be a tense encounter.<\/p>\n
The history of matches between England and Argentina is peppered with flashpoints on the pitch, set against a lingering sovereignty dispute over the Falkland Islands, known in Spanish as the Malvinas, in the South Atlantic Ocean.<\/p>\n
Britain sent a military taskforce in 1982 to reclaim the islands after Argentine troops invaded.<\/p>\n
But Scaloni sought to put politics aside after Argentina’s victory at the Arrowhead Stadium.<\/p>\n
“Look, this is a football game,” he said. “OK, so the message is this is a football game. That’s what I can say.<\/p>\n
“It is a football game and we will be playing against a very tough opponent. They have an excellent coach and this is a football game and that’s all.”<\/p>\n
The game against England comes 40 years after a seismic encounter in the quarter-finals of the 1986 World Cup in Mexico.<\/p>\n
Argentina secured a 2-1 victory at the Estadio Azteca with two goals from Diego Maradona – one the infamous “Hand of God” goal and the other a dazzling solo effort considered one of the best ever.<\/p>\n
The teams have faced each other twice in World Cups since – Argentina won on penalties in 1998 while England gained revenge four years later.<\/p>\n
Scaloni admitted the defending champions would have to improve after another tough test following gruelling 3-2 wins over Cape Verde and Egypt.<\/p>\n
“We won because of our ambition – we didn’t want it to go to penalties,” he said. “It was more about the desire to win than the quality of play.”<\/p>\n
He added: “We are in the semi-finals, a privileged position in football that we might take for granted, but it’s not that easy.<\/p>\n
“We have every reason to be happy, satisfied, and excited.<\/p>\n
“Now we’re going for everything we can, right to the end, with every last ounce of strength and every last drop of sweat.<\/p>\n
“If we pull it off, great. If not, we’re going to give it our all. Let there be no doubt about that.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Follow all the action as England take on Argentina in their World Cup semi-final. Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":527835,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,213],"class_list":["post-527834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=527834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/527835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=527834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=527834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=527834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}