Diego Armando Maradona Franco was an Argentine professional football player and manager. Widely regarded as one of the greatest players in the history of the sport, he was one of the two joint winners of the FIFA Player of the 20th Century award, alongside Pelé.
The 1986 FIFA World Cup was the 13th FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial football tournament for men's senior national teams. It was played in Mexico from 31 May to 29 June 1986. The tournament was the second to feature a 24-team format. Colombia had been originally chosen to host the competition by FIFA but, largely due to economic reasons, was not able to do so, and resigned in November 1982. Mexico was selected as the new host in May 1983, and became the first country to host the World Cup more than once, after previously hosting the 1970 edition.
The 1990 FIFA World Cup was the 14th FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial football tournament for men's senior national teams. It was held from 8 June to 8 July 1990 in Italy, the second country to host the event for a second time. Teams representing 116 national football associations entered and qualification began in April 1988. 22 teams qualified from this process, along with the host nation Italy and defending champions Argentina.
The Argentina national football team, nicknamed La Albiceleste, represents Argentina in men's international football and is administered by the Argentine Football Association, the governing body for football in Argentina.
The FIFA U-20 World Cup is the biennial football world championship tournament for FIFA members’ men's national teams with players under the age of 20. The competition has been staged every two years since the inaugural tournament in 1977 when it was hosted by Tunisia under the tournament name of FIFA World Youth Championship until 2005. In 2007 the name was changed to its present form. FIFA bills the men's Under-20 World Cup as "the tournament of tomorrow's superstars." Diego Maradona, Lionel Messi and Paul Pogba are previous winners of the official player of the tournament award, and Erling Haaland was the top scorer at the 2019 edition. The current title holder is Uruguay, which won its first title at the 2023 tournament in Argentina.
Lionel Andrés "Leo" Messi is an Argentine professional footballer who plays as a forward for and captains both Major League Soccer club Inter Miami and the Argentina national team. Widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all time, Messi set numerous records for individual accolades won throughout his professional footballing career such as eight Ballon d'Or awards and eight times being named the world's best player by FIFA. He is the most decorated player in the history of professional football having won 45 team trophies, including twelve Big Five league titles, four UEFA Champions Leagues, two Copa Américas, and one FIFA World Cup. Messi holds the records for most European Golden Shoes (6), most goals for a single club, most goals (474), hat-tricks (36) and assists (192) in La Liga, most matches played (39), assists (18) and goal contributions (34) in the Copa América, most matches played (26) and goal contributions (21) in the World Cup, most international appearances (191) and international goals (112) by a South American male, and the second-most in the latter category outright. A prolific goalscorer and creative playmaker, Messi has scored over 850 senior career goals for club and country.
As of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, 80 national teams have competed at the finals of the FIFA World Cup. Brazil is the only team to have appeared in all 22 tournaments to date, with Germany having participated in 20, Italy and Argentina in 18 and Mexico in 17. Eight nations have won the tournament. The inaugural winners in 1930 were Uruguay; the current champions are Argentina. The most successful nation is Brazil, which has won the cup on five occasions. Five teams have appeared in FIFA World Cup finals without winning, while twelve more have appeared in the semi-finals.
New Maradona or New Diego was a title given by the press and public to promising Argentine football players in reference to Diego Maradona as a benchmark. Since Maradona retired, fans had been anticipating someone to lead the Argentina national team to a World Cup final, like Maradona did in 1986 and 1990. As a consequence, very talented youngsters were quickly labeled as the New Maradona, sometimes without any similarity in playing style. The New Maradonas were predominantly players in attacking or advanced playmaking roles — forwards, wingers, or attacking midfielders. The term gradually fell out of use after Lionel Messi successfully managed to lead Argentina to World Cup finals in 2014 and 2022, winning it in the latter, arguably emulating and surpassing Maradona to become the most successful Argentine footballer ever.
The Argentina national under-20 football team is the representative of Argentina in FIFA-sponsored tournaments that pertain to that age level.
Argentina v England was a football match played on 22 June 1986 between Argentina and England in the quarter-finals of the 1986 FIFA World Cup at the Estadio Azteca in Mexico City. The game was held four years after the Falklands War between Argentina and the United Kingdom, and was a key part in the already intense Argentina–England football rivalry. It was also a match which included two of the most well-known goals in football history, both scored by Argentina captain Diego Maradona.
This is a list of statistical records for the Argentina national football team.
This is a record of the men's Germany and West Germany's results at the FIFA World Cup. For Germany's World Cup history, FIFA considers only the teams managed by the German Football Association, comprising three periods: Germany, West Germany and reunified Germany. The men's Germany national football team is one of the most successful national teams at the FIFA World Cup, winning four titles, earning second-place and third-place finishes four times each and one fourth-place finish. Germany's 12 podium finishes in 20 tournaments add up to at least three more than any other nation. In addition, Germany are the only team which has stood on the podium at least once during the completed decades in which at least one tournament was held. Along with Argentina, Brazil and Spain, they are one of the four national teams to win outside their continental confederation, with the title of the 2014 FIFA World Cup in South America. The team qualified for every FIFA World Cup tournament they have entered, the second most frequent, and only failed to reach the quarter-finals three times, in 1938, 2018, and 2022. With this, Germany's 8th place or better (quarter-finals) in 17 out of 20 tournaments (85%) ranks highest in FIFA World Cup finals history. It makes Germany the best team in the history of the tournament in terms of final positions, if points were awarded proportionally for a title, runner-up finish, third-place finish, semi-final and quarter-final appearances.
This is a record of Italy's results at the FIFA World Cup. Italy is one of the most successful national teams in the history of the World Cup, having won four titles, just one fewer than Brazil. The team was present in 18 out of the 22 tournaments, reaching six finals, a third place and a fourth place.
The 2014 FIFA World Cup final was the final match of the 2014 World Cup, the 20th edition of FIFA's competition for national football teams. The match was played at the Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on 13 July 2014, and was contested by Germany and Argentina. The event comprised hosts Brazil and 31 other teams who emerged from the qualification phase, organised by the six FIFA confederations. The 32 teams competed in a group stage, from which 16 teams qualified for the knockout stage. En route to the final, Germany finished first in Group G, with two wins and a draw, after which they defeated Algeria in the round of 16, France in the quarter-final and Brazil, by a score of 7–1, in the semi-final. Argentina finished first in Group F with three wins, before defeating Switzerland in the round of 16, Belgium in the quarter-final and the Netherlands in a penalty shoot-out in the semi-final. The final was witnessed by 74,738 spectators in the stadium, as well as over a billion watching on television, with the referee for the match being Nicola Rizzoli from Italy.
The history of the Argentina national football team begins with their first official match, played on 20 July 1902 against Uruguay, a 6–0 win in Paso del Molino, Montevideo. One year before, There had been a precedent when representatives from both sides met in a match also in Montevideo, although it was not organised by any association and therefore is not considered official.
Nine of ten members of the South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL) have competed in the men's FIFA World Cup finals. National association football teams from CONMEBOL have won the tournament ten times, including Brazil's record five championships. CONMEBOL countries have hosted the finals five times.
Belgium have appeared in the finals tournament of the FIFA World Cup on 14 occasions, the first being at the first FIFA World Cup in 1930 where they finished in 11th place and played the first ever World Cup match against the United States. The inaugural FIFA World Cup final was officiated by Belgian referee John Langenus.
Group C of the 2022 FIFA World Cup took place from 22 to 30 November 2022. The group consisted of eventual champions Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Mexico and Poland. The top two teams, Argentina and Poland, advanced to the round of 16. This marked the first time that Mexico did not advance past the first round since 1978.
The knockout stage of the 2022 FIFA World Cup was the second and final stage of the competition, following the group stage. Played from 3 to 18 December, the knockout stage ended with the final, held at Lusail Stadium in Lusail, Qatar. The top two teams from each group advanced to the knockout stage to compete in a single-elimination tournament. There were 16 matches in the knockout stage, including a third place play-off played between the two losing teams of the semi-finals.
The 2022 FIFA World Cup final was the final match of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, the 22nd edition of FIFA's competition for men's national football teams. The match was played at Lusail Stadium in Lusail, Qatar, on 18 December 2022, the Qatari National Day, and was contested by Argentina and defending champions France. With a record 1.5 billion people watching on television, the final became one of the most widely watched televised sporting events in history.
