After England’s nerve-shredding triumph over Norway in the World Cup, a mood of excitement is spreading across the land.
With optimism in the air, pubs full and the streets bedecked with the cross of St George, the British public is daring to hope that football’s richest prize might just be coming home after 60 years.
But there is a formidable obstacle on the path to victory. If England are to make it to the World Cup final in New Jersey, they will have to beat holders Argentina in Atlanta. A daunting challenge indeed.
Argentina are a high-class team that includes probably the greatest player of modern times, Lionel Messi, who has been in tremendous goal-scoring form in this tournament, despite his advancing years.
But just as intimidating as the talent of Argentina, is the atmosphere of friction and hostility that envelops this fixture.
Wednesday’s semi-final is far more than just another World Cup tie. It is the latest episode in one of sport’s bitterest rivalries.
George Orwell wrote that sport is ‘war minus the shooting’. And the perennial struggle between England and Argentina has embraced violent onfield clashes, diplomatic rows and political acrimony – all fuelled by the legacy of the Falklands War.
Already, tensions are rising. Gary Lineker, the former BBC host who delights in his public image as a rebellious social justice warrior, has just stirred the bubbling pot of controversy by referring to the Falklands by their Argentinian name, Las Malvinas.
Jude Bellingham sings Oasis’s Wonderwall to the England supporters after beating Norway 2-1
Lionel Messi dribbles the ball during Argentina’s World Cup Quarter Final match against Switzerland
England footballers celebrate with the crowd after winning their quarter final match against Norway
Meanwhile, the Argentinian team has been whipping up anti-English sentiment. The Argentinian FA yesterday released video footage of the players celebrating in their dressing room with a fervent rendition of Muchachos, which includes the lyrics: ‘I am Argentine from cradle to grave, for the Malvinas, for Lionel’s final chapter.’
The belief the Falklands belong to Argentina has no basis in international law, but the country’s leaders regularly highlight the claim to distract from their own failings.
That was what drove General Galtieri, the head of the unpopular, economically inept, military junta, to launch his invasion in 1982, while current president Javier Milei, engulfed by a huge fiscal crisis, frequently resorts to desperate flag-waving.
Yet the intensity of the rancour between England and Argentina stretches back far beyond the Falklands War.
Twenty years earlier, during the 1962 World Cup held in Chile, the two countries had played their first competitive international, England winning comfortably 3-1 in a one-sided match that gave little indication of the later explosive animosity.
But in 1964, England, under new manager Alf Ramsey, detected a change in attitude when they visited South America for a tournament known as The Little World Cup.
On this occasion Argentina showed a new aggressive edge, as the Arsenal midfielder George Eastham recalled. ‘Alf told us not to get involved if Argentina cut up rough, just to look after ourselves… He detested them.’
Worse followed in 1966 when the two sides met in the quarter-final of the World Cup at Wembley. According to the England captain Bobby Moore, the home team accepted that the match would ‘be hard, maybe brutal’.
Messi waves his shirt alongside his teammates as their celebrate their 3-1 victory
Messi smiles at the camera as he embraces a teammate wearing a substitutes bib last night
Gary Lineker pictured during his appearance on ITV’s World Cup coverage in New York
But the reality was even worse. Ankles were kicked, hair tugged and eyes poked. ‘I quickly discovered whenever I beat an Argentinian I could expect to be tripped, bodychecked, spat at or dragged to the ground,’ said Sir Bobby Charlton.
‘The tackles were flying in, and so was the spittle,’ recalled George Cohen.
Argentina’s ill-discipline was epitomised by the dismissal of captain Antonio Rattin after 36 minutes for a foul on Charlton, followed by dissent to the referee.
Rattin carried on arguing for a full eight minutes before he finally left the field to a loud chorus of boos by the crowd and some manhandling of the referee by the Argentinians.
Football writer Hugh McIlvanney said what he had witnessed was ‘not so much a match, as an international incident’.
The anarchy continued after the final whistle when Cohen tried to swap shirts with his Argentinian opposite number, only to be prevented from doing so by a furious Ramsey. ‘You’re not changing shirts with that animal,’ he barked.
Fifa, the game’s governing body, imposed a four-match ban on Rattin and an £85 fine on the Argentina team, while Ramsey was told to apologise for repeating his ‘animals’ remark in a press conference. Sir Michael Cresswell, the British ambassador in Argentina, was given extra police protection.
The great irony of this clash was that Britain had been the country to introduce football to Argentina. In the middle of the 19th century, the British expatriate community in Buenos Aires, which numbered about 100,000, began to play the sport which had become popular and well-organised at home.
Royal Marine Pete Robinson carries his gear with a Union Flag attached to it on the Falkand Island
Argentine President Javier Milei sings the national anthem during a ceremony to remember the Falkands War
The first recorded match in Argentina was in 1867 between two teams of British railway workers at the Buenos Aires Cricket Club and by 1891 the country’s first league had been established.
But the other great irony of this saga is that English football’s rise to its current fabulous wealth was inspired by two Argentinian players, Ossie Ardiles and Ricky Villa, who had both been members of the 1978 World Cup-winning side.
Until the mid-1970s, foreigners had been banned from playing professional football in England unless they had been resident in the country for two years, but European Common Market rules banned such restraint of trade so the football league had to open up its recruitment.
Spurs boss Keith Burkinshaw sniffed a golden opportunity and travelled to Argentina to make a deal for Villa and Ardiles.
Both men were huge successes at Spurs, helping to change the fabric of English football. But they did not play in the 1982 Cup final because of the Falklands.
Nor did the first match after the end of the war do anything to restore mutual friendliness. In the 1986 World Cup, Diego Maradona scored one of the great goals of all time when he went on a mesmerising run from the halfway line. But he also scored one of the most notorious, punching the ball into the net, a goal immortalised as the ‘Hand of God’ incident.
The two sides met again at the 1998 World Cup and, once more, the match was marred by controversy when David Beckham was sent off for kicking out at Argentina midfielder Diego Simeone.
If England prevail by fair means on Wednesday, they will have done something to drag this fixture out of the mire of politicised confrontation that has blighted it for decades.
