Argentina will take on England in the semi-finals of the World Cup. Before the match, FIFA officially confirmed the color of the jersey.
After this decision, football fans have returned to the memory of the historic quarter-finals of the 1986 Mexico World Cup, where Argentina beat England with the same blue jersey.
Lionel Scaloni’s disciples in Atlanta will wear a blue jersey in the semi-finals on Wednesday, while England will play in their traditional white jersey. The decision was finalised after a meeting of representatives of the Argentine Football Association (AFA), English Football Association (FA) and FIFA.
Diego Maradona took the field in the blue jersey against England in the quarter-finals of the 1986 World Cup. In that match, he gave two memorable moments in the history of football — ‘Hand of God’ and ‘Goal of the Century’. As a result, the use of the blue jersey against the same opponent has once again brought an additional historical atmosphere to the match.
England have used white jerseys in five of the six matches so far. They only played in the group stage wearing a red jersey against Panama. On the other hand, Argentina used the blue jersey only once in this tournament, against Jordan in the last match of the group stage, where they won by 3-1.
This will be Argentina’s fourth blue jersey against England in World Cup history. Earlier, the two teams met in the same colour jersey in the 1962, 1986 and 1988 World Cups. However, in the 1966 and 2002 seasons, Argentina used their traditional sky-white home jersey.
According to FIFA’s competition rules, the top-ranked team at the top of Brackett in the knockout stage is the priority to use the home jersey as a ‘Team A’. England have won the semi-finals and their white jerseys have been retained. An alternative blue jersey has been set for Argentina to ensure a sufficient color difference between the two team jerseys, so that the two teams can be easily identified on the field for players, match officials and spectators.