By Eniola Olatunji reporting for Patmos Media Line
…Maintain a record of never losing any semifinal game in five World Cup games …
WORLD DEFENDING champions, Argentina on Wednesday night at the Atlanta Stadium in USA reversed the English victory over the 1982 Falkland War with an injury time capture of the Three Lions of England in the 2026 World Cup semifinal 2-1.
In 1982, it took 76 months for England to subdue Argentina over an imbroglio that turned War and in Atlanta there was a rugby war featuring hacking, dangerous fouls and terrible attacks just for a win.
England came up with the opener in the 55th minute making everyone think Argentina would suffer another Falkland War defeat after Leandro Parades missed a chance to score for the defending champions and Morgan Rogers grabbed the ball, flicked a cross to Anthony Gordon of Barca to score from close range for England.
Mega star Lionel Messi who played a yeoman’s game for Argentina took a corner kick that found Enzo Fernandez to score the equalizer in the 85th minute and same Messi messed up England with another telepathic cross to Lautaro Martinez to nod the winner into the net. Messi is super good with corner kick Crosses with accurate deliveries.
Argentina was better with 14-6 shots at goal, 6-3 on target; dominated play stringing 578-331 Crosses that made the Lions run round the field in fierce anger while they held ball possession for 64-36%(England started playing like a team that lost hope of victory from the 80th minute) and Argentina amazed foul calls 15-14 times receiving 3-1 yellow cards and forcing a confused forest of Lions to concede 1-6 corner kicks (4 of the Argentina kicks were from 10 minutes to full time).
Some of us always carrying football statistics like the Bible saw the Argentina’s winner coming as the country has never lost any of her previous 5 semifinal matches beating USA 6-1 in 1930; blew off Belgium 2-0 in 1986; arrested the Italians via penalty 5-4 after 1-1 AET in 1990; pushed off the Dutch also via penalty 4-2 after a goalless full time and crushed Croatia 3-0 at the last 2022 tournament.
England had played thrice at the semifinal winning once beating Portugal 2-1 in 1966 only time they lifted the trophy; lost to West Germany via penalty 4-3 after 1-1 at full time in 1990 and also lost to Croatia 1-2 AET in 2018.
Six matches were played between both sides before where England won four times, Argentina won once and there was a draw where 18 goals were scored 11 of them by England.
There were 5 world cup meetings. A group 4 match of 2nd June 1962 which England won 3-1; A quarterfinals of 23rd July 1966 which England won by a lone goal on the way to lifting the title; another quarterfinals of 22nd June 1986 that England lost 1-2 when Maradona scored the winner; in 1998 when Argentina ousted England at the R16 stage on 30th June via penalty 4-3 after 2-2 at Full-time, at group F of 7th June 2002 where England won by a lone goal. England won a friendly match of 12th November 2006 by 3-2.
The 3rd place match between France and England for the Bronze medal is at Miami Gardens on Saturday 18th July at 10pm.
The grande finale between defending champions and new challenger Spain will be at Metlife Stadium in East Rutherford USA on Sunday 19th July at 8pm.
#FIFA #2026WORLDCUP #EUFA #CONMEBOL #THE FA #AFA #NFF.
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