Argentina vs Switzerland Live Score, FIFA World Cup 2026 Quarterfinal Match Updates: On one side of the field will be Argentina, the defending World Cup champions, boasting a roster that features the likes of Lautaro Martinez, Julián Alvarez and, of course, Lionel Messi, perhaps the greatest player of his generation.
On the other side, Switzerland.
Yes, the final quarterfinal match Saturday night could hardly seem a bigger mismatch. Argentina has the glitz and the glamour, to say nothing of the stars and the trophies, while the Swiss have never even reached the World Cup semifinals; in fact, they haven’t been to the quarterfinals since 1954, when they lost to Austria in a tournament they hosted.
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But anything can happen on the field as Argentina and the rest of the world learned when the three-time champions struggled to beat Cape Verde, and when La Albiceleste had to rally from a 2-0 deficit in the final 11 minutes to beat Egypt on Tuesday. And that has given hope to a Switzerland team that beat Colombia on penalty kicks to earn a date with the Argentines at Arrowhead Stadium.
“We know Argentina has many fine qualities. Few talk about the Swiss qualities,” defensive midfielder and team captain Granit Xhaka said Friday. “Tomorrow we will talk on the pitch, and we will show what we can do, and everything else doesn’t matter.”
The winner will play either Norway or England on Wednesday in Atlanta for a spot in the World Cup final.
Scroll down to read live updates from the Argentina vs Switzerland game
Lionel Scaloni: How Argentina’s unlikely manager rebuilt Messi and a golden era
Argentina’s head coach Lionel Scaloni kisses Argentina’s Lionel Messi. (FILE photo)
The man that cannot control a traffic. It was Diego Maradona’s brutal assessment of Lionel Scaloni when he was appointed the full-time manager of Argentina in 2018. Argentina had a plethora of glittering names to choose from: the cult figure Marcelo Bielsa, the new-age revolutionary Mauricio Pochettino, the angel of dark arts in black suits, Diego Simeone.
Yet, to resurrect from the post-Moscow World Cup catastrophe, they turned to a largely unknown and unglamorous man. His club journey was scattered in the mid-table clubs of Italy and Spain. He wore his national stripes only seven times. He briefly managed Sevilla and Argentina’s U-20 squad, before joining the backroom staff of Jorge Sampaoli during his catastrophic reign. The federation chose him, reportedly, because he came cheap, and because he was not egoistic; the simplicity of his upbringing in a farming household in Pujato, Santa Fe, showed.
