Brazil’s clash with Argentina on Tuesday night was set up to be a headline-grabbing occasion, and it was exactly that for all of the wrong reasons. The game was delayed after Rio state police charged into Argentina fans, hitting them with batons, before Lionel Messi took his side off the pitch. The match eventually began with a delay.
Once it did begin, there was little football being played, as the game averaged nearly a foul every two minutes. Unsurprisingly there were a number of confrontations between the players too, with one involving Messi, Atletico Madrid’s Rodrigo de Paul and Real Madrid’s Rodrygo Goes.
The trio hold a heated exchange, and the video footage shows what has been interpreted as Rodrygo saying ‘cowards’, or perhaps more crudely, that Argentina always s*** themselves under pressure situations.
Messi, who has been fierce in his leadership approach for Argentina in recent years grabbed Rodrygo around the neck, allegedly saying ‘Why are we cowards? We’re world champions.”
Welcome to the Barcelona-Real Madrid-Atletico Madrid royal rumble.pic.twitter.com/BfQZZSTfm3
— Football España (@footballespana_) November 22, 2023
The football rivalry between Brazil and Argentina runs deep between the two, and the players will have grown up seeing their validation in Latin America through defeat or victory to their most bitter opponents. Yet the tensions between the two continue to spill over into violence, with the police also taking draconian measures against Boca Juniors fans in the events surrounding the Copa Libertadores final recently, when they played Fluminense at the Maracana.
