This doesn't even sound like a conspiracy anymore. Something clearly happened behind the scenes before the World Cup Final. Too many things don't add up.
• Scaloni arrived at the stadium and got off the team bus in tears.
• Messi "missed" every shot in the warm-up. In over 20 years, I genuinely can't remember ever seeing that. Was he doing it deliberately, or was his mind somewhere else?
• Messi's family didn't even come to the stadium despite living in Miami.
• The entire squad walked out of the dressing room with their heads down, completely shaken up. Enzo and Licha were both seen crying.
• Messi was heard saying: "Let's forget about everything. Let's just play. Forget about everything." Everyone around him looked devastated.
• Scaloni completely abandoned the tactical approach that had worked throughout the tournament, leaving the midfield exposed against a team whose biggest strength is midfield control. Messi and Julián were isolated all game.
• Argentina had 0 shots on target in 90 minutes, yet Lautaro, one of their biggest attacking weapons, never came on.
• Both Cuti Romero and Lisandro Martínez asked to be substituted because of "injuries", yet neither looked to be in obvious pain. These are arguably the two toughest players in the squad. Interestingly, both also ignored Trump during the trophy presentation.
• Spain committed over 20 fouls without receiving a single card. Oyarzabal's challenge on Messi's knee and Cucurella's foul on Simeone were both obvious booking opportunities.
• Cucurella also somehow escaped a red after covering his mouth during a confrontation with Messi.
• Even Spain's celebrations felt strangely subdued. From a neutral perspective, that's understandable given Argentina never really put on a fight.
This isn't meant to take anything away from Spain. They were World Cup favourites for a reason and fully deserved the title based on what happened on the pitch.
But I've watched this Argentina team since 2021, and I've never seen anything remotely like Sunday. This team's identity has always been its passion, intensity and willingness to fight for every ball. None of that was there.
I'm not claiming to know what happened. Maybe it was connected to the Malvinas incident. Maybe there was pressure from someone powerful. Maybe it involved their families. Maybe it was something else entirely.
But I refuse to believe that what we watched was simply Argentina having an off day.
Too many signs pointed to a squad that looked emotionally broken before the match had even kicked off.
I just hope that one day we find out what really happened behind the scenes.
🚨 OFFICIAL: Barcelona statement.
“The president of FC Barcelona, Rafael Yuste y Abel, today sent a formal letter to the presidents of LaLiga, Javier Tebas; of the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF), Rafael Louzán; and the Technical Committee of Referees (CTA), Francisco Soto, in relation to the statements made by the president of Real Madrid CF, Florentino Pérez, in various public appearances on May 12 and 13.
FC Barcelona considers that these statements, in addition to being false, seriously violate the honorability and image of the League competition in the First Division, as well as against the refereeing system in its entirety, and damage the reputation and credibility of Spanish professional football.
The Club urges the co-organizers of the competition and the referees to defend the reputation of their bodies - just as the Club has recently done with the filing of the request for conciliation - and asks the recipient entities, within the scope of their respective competences, to urgently adopt the appropriate associative and judicial measures against Mr. Pérez to defend the honorability, integrity and prestige of the institutions they represent and the competitions they organize”.
@v1scabrca10@ReshadRahman@MatteMoretto That I don't think will happen. Cause it's pretty clear that Real Madrid have no intentions of actually signing Alvarez. Perez just sent a bid to save his face after Bayern blocked any sort of moves for Olise.
@ruliashino Bangladesh isn't what the FIFA Rank suggests to be honest. With the amount of talent in this generation of players, we can easily get to top 140-150 in the next few years.