The World Cup is no stranger to political undertones, but Wednesday’s semifinal between England and Argentina is a whole different ballgame.
The match will be played Wednesday in Atlanta, but the thoughts of each team and a host of fans will be 6,100 miles southeast, on an island archipelago 300 miles off the coast of Argentina. The Falklands, as it’s known by Britons, and the Malvinas, by Argentinians, have played a symbolic and psychological role in both countries far exceeding their actual utility.
Trash-talking around the match has veered away from player behavior to instead feature references to the ARA General Belgrano, Goose Green, Margaret Thatcher, and competing historical and legal justifications of who should own the string of islands in the deep south of the Southern Hemisphere. Security had to be beefed up around the match, and several fights broke out in Atlanta between opposing fans.
The feelings of Argentinians and English are still raw over the island, with thousands of people in each country able to count a relative who was killed in the 1982 war over the territory.
The rivalry today
After the guns fell silent in 1982, Argentinians and Britons turned to another method of fighting for the Falklands — soccer.
The soccer rivalry extends back to 1966, when England beat Argentina on home soil on its way to winning their only World Cup trophy. In the quarterfinal, England scored a controversial goal, Argentinian captain Antonio Rattin had to be forcibly removed from the pitch, and England manager Alf Ramsey called the opponents “animals” and forbade his team from swapping shirts at the final whistle. The clash was so bad-tempered that it led to FIFA introducing the now-universally known disciplinary system of yellow and red cards.
Fast forward to the 1986 World Cup in Mexico, when tensions still lingered four years after the Falklands War, and Argentinian superstar Diego Maradona scored two of the most notorious goals in tournament history. One of them was the infamous “Hand of God,” when Maradona scored the goal with his left hand, but it wasn’t noticed by the referee. Minutes later, he proceeded to dribble his way through the entire England team to score one of the best goals ever, enough for a 2-1 victory.
Another chapter in their rivalry emerged with the 1998 World Cup, when the two sides met in the second round. Rising English superstar David Beckham was sent off when he kicked Diego Simeone, who exaggerated the impact. The two sides drew 2-2 in 90 minutes, and England ultimately lost on penalties. Beckham became a villain at home in England but ultimately redeemed himself in the 2002 World Cup when the two sides met in the group stage, and he scored a decisive penalty to seal a 1-0 win for England.
Wednesday’s clash sets up their first World Cup encounter since 2002. They have only played each other once since then, a 2005 friendly, which England won 3-2. By a quirk of scheduling, Argentina’s Lionel Messi has never played England.
The semifinal in Atlanta sets up another match where the two soccer titans will get to take out their frustrations swirling around national pride against one another, at a time when Argentinian President Javier Milei is reviving the Falklands dispute in the diplomatic sphere.
Why the disagreement over ownership?
The Falklands dispute revolves around two different mutually exclusive legal justifications for sovereignty, making settling the matter particularly difficult.
While London argues that it holds the territory rightfully through the first landing and continuous occupation, its primary justification lies in the doctrine of self-determination.
The overwhelming majority of Falkland residents are the descendants of British settlers, and likewise overwhelmingly want to remain part of the United Kingdom. The islands are one of 10 U.K. possessions still classified as a colony or territory without self-rule. After the 1982 Falklands War, its defenses have been significantly reinforced.
Argentina rejects the principle of self-determination in this case, arguing that the inhabitants of the islands were illegally transplanted there by the U.K., so they do not qualify. It has also repeatedly claimed that the U.K. expelled Argentinian residents when it took control of the islands in 1833, a claim disputed by London and many historians.
Argentina’s argument for its ownership of the islands revolves around uti possidetis juris, a doctrine holding that colonies that obtain independence maintain the borders they had while under their overlord. Argentina claims that it inherited sovereignty over the islands through Spain’s claim — a claim that is disputed.
The Falklands, or Malvinas, lie on Argentina’s continental shelf, so Buenos Aires argues that it’s fairly Argentina’s.
A centuries-long intractable dispute
The Falklands are unique among the U.K.’s colonies in that they are one of the few that were not inhabited by indigenous people when they were colonized. The islands appeared on Portuguese maps in the 16th century, though no record of a landing from this time has survived. The British were the first to be confirmed to have landed on the islands in 1690, when Captain John Strong set foot on the islands and named them after the then Lord of the Admiralty, Anthony Cary, 5th Viscount Falkland, who had financed the expedition.
Decades passed with no further activity until the French established the first settlement in 1764, followed closely by the British the following year. Citing its claims under the Treaty of Tordesillas, the Spanish pressured its French ally to relinquish its colony in 1766, and in 1770, its attempts to seize the whole archipelago almost triggered a war with the British. The British ultimately withdrew in 1771 due to empire-wide financial pressures but left a plaque and flag asserting authority. The Spanish abandoned the islands in 1811 to deal with the revolutionary wars of independence breaking out across its colonial possessions, including in what became Argentina.
The island maintained human activity during this interregnum in the form of British and American sealers and fishers. It was first claimed by what became Argentina in 1820, when the American privateer David Jewett arrived and raised the flag of the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata, though the country he was claiming it for was apparently unaware he was doing so.
Inaugurating the most confusing period of the dispute was the establishment of a colony on the island by Luis Vernet, a German merchant who was commissioned by both the British government and Buenos Aires authorities. He remained in constant contact with both and simultaneously sought the use of the military forces of both. After he seized three American whaling ships under the claimed authority of Buenos Aires, the United States sent the USS Lexington to the islands in retaliation, ransacking them and taking all 40 or so residents on board. The islands were declared uninhabited, and Buenos Aires’s attempt to reassert control through the appointment of another governor ended in disaster when his own troops mutinied and murdered him. The chaos convinced London to dispatch two warships to reassert British control in 1833, beginning its period of unambiguous direct control over the island.
Tensions fluctuated, culminating in an 1845-1850 Anglo-French blockade of Argentina over an unrelated civil war in Uruguay, which was resolved with the 1850 Convention of Settlement, which many historians interpret as Argentina giving up its claims to the Falklands. The U.K. and Argentina grew increasingly close due to the close trade between the two, setting up the U.K. as a cultural and economic model for Argentina. The Falklands were rarely even mentioned in official communications by Argentina for the rest of the century.
Tensions flared back up in the interwar period, when trade collapsed and, with it, Argentina’s economy. Argentinian politicians in the 1930s took up the cause of seizing the Malvinas and formed an influential lobby. Many saw an opening when the U.K. was distracted in World War II. Strongman Juan Peron took power in 1946 and began to blame the country’s economic woes on the British. These woes naturally extended into a larger anti-imperialist push against the British holdings 300 miles to its east, resentment that festered over the next few decades.
The dispute’s climax
Further economic failures drove the main clash between the two powers in 1982. Facing increasing unpopularity over economic stagnation, the Argentinian military junta, led by Gen. Leopoldo Galtieri, decided to finally resolve the Falklands dispute militarily, hoping the strong show of force would rally Argentinians to support the regime.
Buenos Aires gambled that it could seize the islands in a lightning strike with few casualties, as the weakened U.K. did not put up a fight for such a relatively insignificant piece of territory. The opening went off without a hitch, with a few hundred Argentinian marines seizing the islands on April 2, 1982, with just one soldier killed.
The Conservative Party government of Thatcher quickly proved that it was not going to let the islands go without a fight. A naval task force was dispatched for the weekslong journey, and a naval exclusionary zone was established around the islands.
Though thousands of miles away, the U.K.’s military was far superior technologically to Argentina’s. Once its forces were in range, every engagement resulted in a lopsided British victory. The Argentinians were able to inflict some naval and air losses against the British, but the outcome was hardly in doubt after the submarine HMS Conqueror sank the ARA General Belgrano with two torpedoes on April 30, forcing an Argentinian naval retreat.
Overall, the Argentinians suffered 649 dead, half of these crewmen of the Belgrano, while the U.K. suffered 255 dead. Thousands more were wounded, and over 11,000 Argentinian soldiers were captured.
For the Argentinian junta, the total defeat was a catastrophe. The government fell within a year, and the country began its democratization.
For the U.K., the war injected a much-needed patriotic boost into Britons, who were coming out of decades of prestige and territorial loss. The Conservative government saw a major boost in popularity, though the sentiment was largely exhausted by the end of the decade.
THE EXPERTS PREDICTED CATASTROPHE. ARGENTINA IS BOOMING
Though defeated, Argentinians stubbornly refused to renounce their claims, and the loss weighs heavily on the Argentinian consciousness. The British as thieving villains has so imbued Argentinian culture that it often surfaces in everyday life: A crude slang term unique to Argentina derides foes as “Ingla-perra,” a combination of the Spanish words for England and b****.
One of Argentina’s most well-known chants revolves around a negative association of the English as well, declaring: “El que no salta es un inglés,” or, “he who doesn’t jump is an Englishman!”