By Oliver Brown
It is, by any stretch, an unedifying image. The sight of Argentina’s players turning around, after Lautaro Martinez’s decisive penalty, to taunt the vanquished Dutch opponents offered a galling rebuke to any theories about the nobility of combat. It also gave succour to crude national stereotypes, based on the two-time champions’ historic penchant for skulduggery.
For anybody seeking to draw a line from Diego Maradona’s “Hand of God” in Mexico City, to Diego Simeone’s theatrical writhing in St Etienne, as David Beckham was red-carded for a foolish but soft flick of a boot, this disgrace in Doha provided the perfect ammunition.
There are, however, two problems with this thesis. The first is that on the night, Louis van Gaal’s Netherlands were not, contrary to popular belief, cruelly wronged paragons of virtue. The very reason Argentina felt compelled to rub their victory in Dutch faces – with Nicolas Otamendi performing a mocking “mouse ears” celebration – was that their opponents had, more than once during a dramatic shoot-out, sought to disturb the penalty-takers as they began the dreaded walk to the spot.
Denzel Dumfries, the worst offender, even earned a yellow card for his trouble, upgraded to red amid the melee that followed Martinez’s winning kick.
It is one of the tacitly accepted tenets of the game that players should be left alone to collect their thoughts before penalties, given each has quite enough mental torment to suppress without somebody getting in their ear and needling them.
While Argentina would be few people’s first choice as custodians of fair play, they clearly viewed Dumfries’ antics as beyond the pale.
Argentina players celebrate in front of their beaten opponents after the winning penalty.Credit:Getty
The second difficulty, in any depiction of Argentina’s ridicule as some damning indictment of national character, is that England have done the same thing. Spool back to their round-of-16 triumph over Colombia at the 2018 World Cup and the overriding memory is of collective euphoria, sparked by the country’s first win at this tournament on penalties. But there was a less palatable side to that moment, with John Stones appearing to mock the defeated Colombians.
While the centre-back claimed he had been looking across at England’s bench, the photographs suggested his line of sight was straight at Wilson Barrios, the midfielder who had only narrowly escaped a red card for a butt on Jordan Henderson.
Place those pictures alongside those of the cavorting Argentines and they could be carbon copies. Tellingly, Stones did not dispute that his reaction was informed by the antagonism of a tempestuous match.
“The best thing for us was to beat them at football,” he said at the time. “That’s the biggest thing that will hurt them. They were probably the dirtiest team I’ve ever come up against.
“There was also a lot of off-the-ball stuff – the sorts of things that you don’t really hear about in a football match.”
The story illustrates the perils of rushing too quickly to judgment.
To the naked eye, the spectacle of Lionel Messi lashing out at Wout Weghorst sullied his otherwise immaculate reputation, coming across as a peevish reaction to the man who electrified this quarter-final with his two late goals. But when you look at Weghorst’s contribution to riling Argentina players en route to the penalties, the captain’s anger starts to make sense.
For all the temptation to condemn a show of gracelessness, there are certain provocations to which you are only privy if you are on the pitch.
Telegraph, London
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