{"id":61318,"date":"2026-07-27T05:39:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T05:39:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/61318\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T05:39:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T05:39:18","slug":"lisandro-martinez-responds-to-anti-argentina-campaign-and-denies-disrespecting-spain-during-world-cup-celebrations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/61318\/","title":{"rendered":"Lisandro Martinez responds to ‘Anti-Argentina’ campaign and denies disrespecting Spain during World Cup celebrations"},"content":{"rendered":"

Argentina<\/a>\u2019s 2026 World Cup run ended without gold following a heartbreaking final loss to Spain, leaving the silver medal as a meager consolation prize. Throughout and after the tournament, the Albiceleste and its players found themselves under heavy fire from global media outlets and social media users. A week after the final, defender Lisandro Martinez<\/a> pushed back against the so-called \u201cAnti-Argentina\u201d campaign and denied allegations that the team disrespected Spain during postgame celebrations.<\/p>\n

Four years after their storybook title run in 2022, Lionel Messi and company were cast as the villains of the 2026 edition. Critics labeled Argentina\u2019s style of play as \u201cdirty,\u201d pointing to a string of heavy fouls, yellow cards, and controversial refereeing decisions. However, the online narrative quickly spiraled beyond tactics into an effort to discredit the team\u2019s achievements, with discussions often degrading into broader slurs against Argentine culture and its people.<\/p>\n

Back in his hometown of Gualeguay, Argentina, Martinez was asked directly about the online backlash and didn\u2019t hold back: \u201cI have quite a few mixed feelings about it. A little bit of anger because clearly they have no basis to generate that hate. Then I also see how my teammates fight on the pitch, how the fans encourage us, how they make us feel at home, and they talk about us being arrogant, about us being this or that\u2026 maybe that speaks a bit more about the people who do those things than about us.\u201c<\/p>\n

Martinez sets the record straight on Spain trophy ceremony<\/p>\n

Another flashpoint in the postgame fallout involved the behavior of Argentina\u2019s squad during Spain\u2019s trophy ceremony. As the Spain<\/a> players stood on the podium celebrating and hoisting the World Cup trophy, camera angles showed the Argentine roster standing near the sideline with their backs turned toward La Roja.<\/p>\n

\"Spain<\/p>\n

Spain lifts the FIFA World Cup Winner\u2019s Trophy while Argentina national team looks at the fans.<\/p>\n

The moment came shortly after the final whistle, which saw a viral scuffle break out between players from both sides. However, head coach Lionel Scaloni dismissed any notion of bad blood in his postgame press conference, insisting his team meant no disrespect toward the newly crowned World Cup<\/a> champions.<\/p>\n

\"2026<\/p>\n

see also<\/p>\n

2026 World Cup winner Dani Olmo fires back at Argentina assistant Roberto Ayala statements: \u2018He is not telling the truth\u2019<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The Manchester United center back echoed his manager\u2019s sentiments, categorically denying any intention to snub Spain. \u201cWe were always very respectful of the opponent. It was also said that after the final, we hadn\u2019t acknowledged Spain. We greeted all the players, all the coaching staff, we were there\u201d Martinez stated.<\/p>\n

Mart\u00ednez concluded by clarifying the context behind the viral image of the team facing away from the stage after falling short of back-to-back titles: \u201cAnd then obviously the image that you see where we are turning our backs is when we our people were singing to us, right? So, it was also a show of respect towards our people, staying there in the moment that we had to stay.\u201c<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Argentina\u2019s 2026 World Cup run ended without gold following a heartbreaking final loss to Spain, leaving the silver…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61319,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4027,23393,17],"class_list":["post-61318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-argentina","tag-lisandro-martinez","tag-spain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61318\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}