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Argentina players face bans as Fifa opens investigation into World Cup final brawls
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2026
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Rodri (Spanish player) ran past an Argentina player (dive remember who) at the final whistle on his way to celebrate with his teammates who were gathering bar I've corner of the pitch). He didn't say anything to the Arg player, but the Arg player punched his arm (in a non-playful way) as he ran by.
Rodri stopped and went back to ask why the Arg player did that. Another Arg player (who had been overly dirty and aggressive all match) ran over to confront Rodri about his approach. This guy was basically just looking for an excuse to fight.
A couple of other Spanish players, seeing the fracas starting ran over to support Rodri. One of these Spanish players was grabbed by the throat. Another was pushed over and smacked in the face as he tried to get back to. There were probably other hits going on at that time.
So basically, it was down to Argentina's players being bad losers and throwing hands for no good reason. But as we've seen elsewhere, they are also bad winners. It's ridiculous that the kids I coach had much better attitudes in both situations than these supposed adult professional athletes. But that's where we're at.
Oh, and during the match, among all the fouls and hits Argentinian players were doing, Messi tried to get Cucarrela sent off because he briefly covered his mouth to demonstrate that a teammate had been hit in the mouth or something. So Messi was being a dirt git as well.
Argentina went into this fixture only intending to fuck with the Spanish players and play down the clock for penalties. They were playing anti-football. Fortunately, Spain didn't fall for it, came to play, and were too good for Argentina's horse shit.
ETA: I got a few details wrong. But what the Argentinian players did in that fracas was actually worse than how I recounted it. More info can be found here.
I don’t get the whole thing of people being upset about Messi. People are mad he tried to tell the ref what Cucurella said? That’s really not that bad or—what I heard—“unsportsmanlike.” How so?
Messi wasn't telling the ref what Cucurella said. Covering your mouth while speaking is a red card offense because players would say slurs and didn't want others to be able to lip-read. Cucurella wasn't doing that, he briefly tapped his lips to gesture that his teammate got hit in the mouth. Messi raised his hand as if Cucurella covered his mouth to say a slur - to get him sent off the pitch and get an unfair advantage.
Not to mention, the time messi was about to get smoked sprinting for the ball and shoved the kid hard enough the kid nearly face planted.
Shoulda been a yellow at least, but naw. They just cut back to replays of someone accidentally coming down on Argentinian feet.
I will never understand why people think Messi is a role model- he’s always riding the edge of unsportsmanlike conduct and he gets to go out further than anyone else. (He’s constantly trying to draw fouls or goes into an aggressive challenge and pretends he got fouled. Worse than fucking Aron Rodgers. “But he touched me! ME!”)