The image that an entire generation feared they might never see, Argentina’s men’s national football team lifting a trophy, has become somewhat standard. The 28 years without a major trophy the Albiceleste spent after 1993 seem so distant a past it feels hardly believable the curse ended just three years ago.
With its success at the 2024 Copa América, Lionel Scaloni’s tenure at the team has now clinched almost as many titles, four, as the five defeats it’s accrued since he first took over in ahead of the 2019 tournament.
While Argentines may refer to football victories as laurels, now is not the time to rest on them. So here are three lessons we learned from Argentina’s continental title defense.
The good — the Albiceleste is at its best
International football is such a different beast from club football it could be a different sport. Whereas club teams are about the process, international ones are about momentum.
Club teams train weekly together and can gauge their progress (or decline) season by season, game by game. At the international level, one tournament can be wildly different from the next and coaches can’t iron out kinks gradually.
Therefore, the sustained excellence of the Argentine national side under Scaloni is almost unheard of. In completing the trio of successes at the 2021 Copa América, the 2022 World Cup, and the 2024 Copa América, the Albiceleste has managed a feat only Spain’s 2008-2012 national side has.
That’s it. No other team has ever done it. Not France’s 1998 golden generation, not Pelé’s Brazil, not Beckenbauer’s Germany.
Since the Pujato native took over, Argentina has won 76% of games. He’s managed to build a team that can outplay any rival as a team or through the brilliance of each player — see Ángel Di María’s final goal or Lionel Messi’s tango dribble against Croatia — but are also able to take a hit and regroup, as they showed in the World Cup or this Copa América against Ecuador. This is a team of historic caliber.
The bad — the next generation barely played
While the tournament was undoubtedly colored by Di María’s announcement that the tournament would be his last with the national team, and the ever-growing concerns as to whether Messi would go a similar route, many hoped this would be the occasion Scaloni started to give minutes to Argentina’s upcoming crop of talent.
Forwards Valentín Carboni and Alejandro Garnacho in the 26-man squad seemed to promise that, as did the inclusion of Valentín Barco in the preliminary 29-man list.
However, neither saw many minutes. Garnacho went on during Argentina’s last group stage game when the team had already secured qualification, while Carboni was subbed in late in the second half.
The task Scaloni faces now is how to integrate those players, along with the likes of Claudio Echeverri, Alan Varela or Valentín Gómez into the team in preparation for the 2026 World Cup without disrupting the current dressing room atmosphere that has made this Argentina team what it is.
With the entire second half of the World Cup Qualifiers to be played, there will be plenty of opportunities but the head coach has some work to do if the Albiceleste is to avoid the fate of that Spain team: collapse and group stage elimination at Brazil 2014.
The ugly — the future without Messi
The sight of Argentina’s captain and hero crying on the bench after being subbed off was a gut punch for every Albiceleste fan. At 37 years old, doubts about Messi’s chances of making the next World Cup grow by the day, inflated by his recent injury trouble and difficulty staying fit during this Copa América.
But if Sunday’s final, and the 2024 tournament generally, have demonstrated anything it’s that “ugly” truth that this Argentina team has a future beyond Messi’s inspiration.
Forward Nicolás González played some of his best football with the national team coming on for Messi. Where La Pulga’s playmaking abilities were missed, Giovani Lo Celso stepped in and assisted Lautaro Martínez for the win.
Going into the next World Cup, it’s become clearer than ever that Argentina needs to sort it’s no-Messi lineup and system as quickly as possible, but that the task won’t be as gargantuan as many feared.
Any player in Argentina’s current lineup would be missed, from Rodrigo De Paul’s energetic and combative movement in the middle to “Dibu” Martínez larger-than-life goalkeeping to Lisandro Martínez’ last-ditch defending. But the Scaloneta is more than the sum of its individual players — even a football icon like Messi.