When Argentina and England step onto the pitch in Atlanta on Wednesday night, it will be their first official meeting in 24 years, a World Cup semi-final that reactivates one of football’s most freighted rivalries. The last competitive encounter, a group-stage match in Sapporo in 2002, was settled by a David Beckham penalty that gave England a 1–0 victory and a measure of redemption for his red card against the same opponents four years earlier. Now, under Thomas Tuchel, England arrive after a quarter-final win over Norway in extra time, with Jude Bellingham identified by South American analysts as the primary threat to Argentina’s defence. Argentina, meanwhile, survived scares against Cape Verde and Egypt before eliminating Switzerland to reach this stage.

Viewed from Buenos Aires, the fixture is inseparable from the 1982 Falklands/Malvinas conflict, which claimed the lives of 649 Argentine and 255 British servicemen. Argentine commentators routinely frame the 1986 quarter-final in Mexico City—a 2–1 victory propelled by Diego Maradona’s ‘Hand of God’ and his slaloming second goal, later voted the Goal of the Century—as a symbolic sporting riposte to that war. Maradona’s son, Diego Maradona Jr., stated from Italy this week that “nothing is normal against England” since that match, a sentiment that runs counter to the efforts of Argentina’s coach, Lionel Scaloni, to treat the semi-final as just another game. British analysts, for their part, tend to foreground the controversy of the handball and the subsequent 1998 round-of-16 clash, where Argentina again prevailed on penalties after Beckham’s dismissal for kicking out at Diego Simeone.

Brazilian coverage highlights that the rivalry predates the war, tracing its roots to the British role in introducing football to Argentina in the 19th century and to a series of tense early World Cup meetings. In 1966, at Wembley, England won 1–0 in a quarter-final remembered in Argentina for the expulsion of captain Antonio Rattín, who sat on the red carpet reserved for Queen Elizabeth in protest. Across five World Cup encounters, a pattern noted in Argentine media is that the South Americans have won each time they wore their alternative blue shirt—the kit they will don again on Wednesday.

Security concerns have been raised in Atlanta, with local police expressing fears of fan confrontations amid ticketing problems and unstable weather threatening a delayed start. Yet on the field, the stakes are purely sporting. Argentina, unbeaten in World Cup semi-finals, are one victory from a second consecutive final, while England seek to reach their first since 1966. For Lionel Messi, the match offers a chance to achieve the one feat that eluded him even as he led Argentina to the 2022 title: defeating England at a World Cup, as Maradona did four decades ago.

The winner will advance to the final, closing a chapter of more than two decades without a competitive meeting between these two nations and setting up a shot at the sport’s ultimate prize.