Argentina haven't just beaten England at the 2026 World Cup. They've turned it into a national holiday.
The Argentine Football Association has officially created 'National Football Teams Day', to be held every July 15 — the date they came from behind to beat England 2-1 in the semi-finals this summer. Enzo Fernández equalised in the 85th minute with a long-range effort before Lautaro Martínez headed home the winner two minutes into stoppage time, sending Argentina through and England home.
Anthony Gordon had given the Three Lions the lead, and for a while it looked like 21 years of avoiding each other had done England no harm. Then came the collapse.
A rivalry that never really went away
The game was already loaded before a ball was kicked. Forty years on from Maradona's Hand of God, England and Argentina met again in the last four of a World Cup — same scoreline, different heartbreak. The AFA leaned into every inch of it in their official statement: 'Thanks to goals from Enzo Fernández and Lautaro Martínez, managed to turn the result around and send the whole country into a frenzy, with people flooding the streets in celebration.'
Argentina lost the final to Spain. That detail didn't make it into the holiday's branding.
The celebration was quickly complicated by what happened in the dressing room afterwards. Several Argentine players were photographed holding a banner reading 'Las Malvinas son Argentinas' — 'The Falklands are Argentine' — a reference to the 1982 conflict that cost 255 British and 649 Argentine lives. FIFA charged the Argentine FA after the tournament. The UK government was vocal in its condemnation well before that.
FIFA's investigation goes deeper than a banner
The banner wasn't the only thing FIFA are looking into. The governing body opened proceedings against Argentina for alleged discrimination, racist abuse, and objects thrown by fans across multiple matches. Leandro Paredes, Nahuel Molina, and assistant coach Roberto Ayala face assault charges following a brawl at the end of the World Cup final. Molina and Thiago Almada are separately under investigation for unsporting behaviour.
That's a lot of open files for a nation declaring a new public holiday.
For England, it's another painful chapter with this fixture — and one they can't even frame as a footnote. Argentina made sure of that. Any future betting markets on an England-Argentina rematch will carry the psychological weight of this result, the same way 1986 did for a generation. History has a habit of repeating itself between these two, and Argentina have just made sure no one forgets which way it went this time.
The AFA statement, at least, acknowledged their other national teams too — youth, women's, futsal, beach soccer. A broad tribute, wrapped around a very specific dig.
