Lionel Scaloni Bids Farewell to Argentina with Three Titles, a World Cup Runner-Up Finish and a Team for the History Books

There's one image that sums it all up: an interim coach with no prior experience as a head manager, standing on the sideline after the elimination at the 2018 World Cup, with the national team more battered than usual. Back then, nobody would have bet that this same coaching staff would go on to lift a World Cup and, years later, bow out of another one with a runner-up finish as painful as it was honorable. That is, in a nutshell, the era of Lionel Scaloni at the helm of the Argentina national team.

The first thing he did was dare to shake things up. He revived careers that looked to be winding down, like those of Angel Di Maria and Nicolas Otamendi, and rebuilt the relationship with a Messi who had been piling up frustrations with the national team. But what really cemented him as the permanent coach was something simpler: he started winning. To do that, he put his faith in names that in 2018 nobody would have penciled into a regular call-up list: Emiliano "Dibu" Martinez, Cristian "Cuti" Romero, Lisandro Martinez, Gonzalo Montiel, Nahuel Molina, Leandro Paredes, Rodrigo De Paul, Giovani Lo Celso, Lautaro Martinez. Later came Alexis Mac Allister, Enzo Fernandez and Julian Alvarez, who ended up as fixtures both in Qatar 2022 and at the 2026 World Cup.

Three titles and a final that will live in memory

Everything truly started to change at the Maracana, at the 2021 Copa America (the 2020 edition, delayed by the pandemic). Argentina snapped a 28-year title drought with a 1-0 win over Brazil, Di Maria's goal included, on the historic rival's home turf. It was no ordinary title: it was Messi's first with the senior national team, and that's where something people began calling the Scaloneta was born.

Next came the Finalissima at Wembley, a resounding 3-0 win over Italy, and then the title that crowned the era: the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, won on penalties against France in a final that will go down as one of the most memorable in the history of the sport. With the back-to-back Copa America title in the United States in 2024, sealed by a Lautaro Martinez goal in extra time against Colombia, Scaloni added his third continental title as a coach.

The 2026 World Cup added one more chapter, though with a bittersweet ending. Argentina reached the final after beating England 2-1 in a semifinal for the ages, but fell to Spain in extra time. There was no back-to-back World Cup title, but there was confirmation of a team that fans already feel is part of their history.

The streaks that broke records

Starting with the 2019 Copa America, Argentina built a 36-game unbeaten streak, the longest in its history, surpassing the 31-game mark set under Alfio Basile between 1991 and 1993. That streak finally ended in the World Cup opener in Qatar, with the shocking 2-1 loss to Saudi Arabia. In World Cup qualifying, the team held another historic streak: 25 games unbeaten between March 2017 and November 2022, until Uruguay ended it with a 2-0 win at La Bombonera. It was the third-best unbeaten run heading into a World Cup, behind only two streaks by Brazil.

The Scaloneta also ended other teams' seemingly endless droughts: winning in Bolivia after 15 years, in Peru after 16, in Venezuela after 14 and in Uruguay after 12. And in 2023, it snapped Brazil's unbeaten home record in qualifying with a 1-0 win at the Maracana, a header from Otamendi. In March 2025, already qualified early for the 2026 World Cup, Argentina thrashed Brazil 4-1 at the Monumental, the first time Brazil had conceded four goals in a qualifying match.

The team is going to keep growing and keep bringing us joy, that's the ideaLionel Scaloni

Between titles, records and one more final that will be remembered for the defeat to Spain, the balance of these years speaks for itself: rarely has an Argentina national team generated so much affection and so much respect at the same time.