England’s Harry Kane and Argentina’s Lionel Messi: some of the stars of tomorrow’s semifinals ‘battle’ – Wiki CommonsSport should sublimate war, not continue it by other means.The World Cup enters the final stretch, with the semifinals sparking big controversies among the four remaining sides.We have reported here on TGP on how today’s match between Spain and France has become embroiled in racism claims after Spanish former Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy criticized the migrant-filled French side for ‘not having any Frenchmen’.But tomorrow’s match between England and Argentina is even more troublesome, as a quarter-final match at the 1986 FIFA World Cup, in which late Argentine star Diego Maradona used his hand to score an illegal goal that Brits have never forgotten, much less forgiven.June 22, 1986, When Argentina won and England lost. Maradona scored a goal by head and hand. Later he even accepted and said it was the hand of God. pic.twitter.com/xqANGdiIIi— Moments & memories (@momentmemori) July 7, 2026Maradona called it – and the press repeated it – the ‘hand of God’.But that is far from all: both sides are now banging literal war drums as the Falklands War is back in the forefront of their minds.The ten-week undeclared war between Argentina and the United Kingdom took place in 1982 over the Falkland Islands and their territorial dependency, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands.The hostilities lasted from 2 April to 14 June 1982.Argentina had 649 killed and 1,657 wounded, while the UK had 255 killed and 775 wounded.And now, after years of bilateral tensions, the World Cup semifinals have brought it out in he open again.British soldiers during the Falklands warDaily Mail reported:“Argentina’s foreign minister Pablo Quirno has added fuel to the arch World Cup rivalry between his nation and England ahead of their semi-final meeting with the timely publication of an essay reasserting the Argentine claim on the Falkland Islands. […] 40 years later, and players celebrated their [quarterfinals] win over Switzerland to book their semi-final against [England’s] Thomas Tuchel and Co with the chant: ‘For the Malvinas, For Diego, For Leo’s (Messi’s) last one’. Quirno went one step further in an op-ed for La Nacion on Sunday, hitting out at the United Kingdom’s ‘illegitimate occupation’ of the Falklands just days before Wednesday’s match in Atlanta. The minister in anarcho-capitalist Javier Milei’s cabinet also rubbished the islanders – of whom 99.8 per cent voted to remain British in a 2013 referendum – as ‘artificially implanted’. “ The Falklands War: Argentina vs. the United Kingdom pic.twitter.com/zgdIekg2Og— World War 3 (@Worldwar_3_) July 12, 2026Needless to say, this has inflamed the British to no end.Outgoing Prime Minister Keir Starmer has lashed out at the Argentine claim that Falklanders were ‘artificially implanted’ on the islands.The Telegraph reported:“The Prime Minister said the islanders had repeatedly expressed their wish to remain a British territory after Pablo Quirno described a 2013 referendum as illegitimate. […] Downing Street rebuked Argentina for questioning the legitimacy of the referendum, in which 99.8 per cent of voters wanted the islands to remain a British territory. There were only three votes against and the turnout was 92 per cent. The Prime Minister’s spokesman said on Monday: “The UK’s position is clear: the islanders have repeatedly expressed their wish to remain a British territory and their right to self-determination is paramount. The Falkland Islanders are British with the right to determine their own future.”[…] [The Argentine Minister] said the 1982 war and the 2013 vote had failed to resolve the Falklands dispute, and added that sovereignty of the archipelago should not be decided by a ‘population artificially implanted by the occupying power’.”Read more:CONTROVERSY SQUAD: Former Spanish PM Mariano Rajoy Has Liberals Enraged After Saying That France’s World Cup Team Has ‘No Frenchmen’/*! This file is auto-generated */!function(d,l){"use strict";l.querySelector&&d.addEventListener&&"undefined"!=typeof URL&&(d.wp=d.wp||{},d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage||(d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage=function(e){var t=e.data;if((t||t.secret||t.message||t.value)&&!/[^a-zA-Z0-9]/.test(t.secret)){for(var s,r,n,a=l.querySelectorAll('iframe[data-secret="'+t.secret+'"]'),o=l.querySelectorAll('blockquote[data-secret="'+t.secret+'"]'),c=new RegExp("^https?:$","i"),i=0;i