France’s increasingly fierce rivalry with Argentina spilled over after their Olympics football quarter-final, with several on-pitch confrontations and then players running down the tunnel to continue their arguments.
Police entered the stands to prevent disorder between fans while squads and staff from bothcountries clashed for several minutes at the end of France’s 1-0 win. France’s Enzo Millot was shown a red card after the game for his part in the fracas and further punishments may loom when the chaotic video evidence has been unpicked.
It was nearly the perfect night for France. A win that eliminated their rivals with a goal scored by a player with a Congolese father, riposte to the racism which emerged with Enzo Fernandez’s video after the Copa America.
Jean-Philippe Mateta headed in Michael Olise’s corner but what happened after the final whistle will overshadow their win.
“Argentina wanted to kill the party, but they made the party even better” was Mateta’s view, but Millot appeared to provoke the Argentina bench at the end of the game, hence his sending off.
French players afterwards accused the Argentinians of being particularly talkative during the game, but were certainly no innocents themselves. Loic Bade loomed over a prone Lucas Beltran at one point, making his point at the limit of acceptable aggression.
”It was an important match because we felt insulted, all of France felt insulted and we ended up as the winners of the game,” said Bade.
“They insulted throughout the game, I don’t know what they were saying because they were speaking Spanish, but they were gesturing.”
France’s Olympic team manager Thierry Henry would rival the world’s top diplomats as a calm head for defusing tense situations, but he did not defend Millot.
Luciano Gondou of Argentina and Castello Lukeba of France battle for the ball in their Olympic quarter-final. Photo / Getty Images
The coach expressed annoyance, saying he could understand losing composure in the heat of a match but not antagonising opponents after its conclusion. He was not pleased either with his side’s carelessness with a one-goal lead, choosing to attack recklessly in the final minutes rather than playing keep-ball. “You have to kill the game,” he said. “We’re not here to have fun.”
There was little of that in Bordeaux on a night soundtracked by anger, played by a power trio of boos, jeers and whistles. It did not feel very Olympian, but it was certainly cathartic for France, who greeted the Argentinian’s warm-ups and national anthem with fury.
Special noise was reserved during the team announcements for the names of Nicolas Otamendi and Julian Alvarez, the two members of Javier Mascherano’s team who had also played in the Copa America.
This rivalry started as a simple footballing tit-for-tat. France knocked out Argentina in the 2018 World Cup, the game of Benjamin Pavard’s outside-boot heatseeker.
Argentina earned revenge in the fever dream of the 2022 final. Their fans sang vile songs about France then, but the players were at it too after retaining the Copa America last month.
This has snowballed into a minor international crisis, overshadowing Argentina’s President Javier Milei meeting his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron for the first time two weeks ago.
Milei’s Vice-President Victoria Villarruel did little to lower the temperature. “No colonialist country is going to intimidate us for a field song or for telling the truths that they do not want to admit,” she said. “Enough of simulating indignation, hypocrites.”
So with the matter distinctly unresolved the meetings between these nations so far at this Olympics have been fraught. Argentina were booed during their rugby sevens quarter-final defeat by France at Stade de France last week and they received similar treatment here in Bordeaux.
At times it felt like Argentina had been advised to do their bit for international relations and let the hosts win. No more so than when Luciano Gondou leaned back and horribly skied a chance to equalise deep into 10 minutes of injury time. Mateta seemingly put the result beyond doubt with a second but it was disallowed after a long VAR delay, prolonging the agony and the aggro.
