Argentine players mock Pickford's comments

Jordan Pickford, the England goalkeeper, was prepared for anything in the semi-final, but he most likely did not expect that crucial information would fall into the hands of his Argentine opponents and spread so widely. As other goalkeepers had done before him, Pickford placed a piece of paper on his water bottle containing printed notes about how Argentina’s players take penalty kicks, should the match go to a shootout. That scenario never materialized, as Argentina overturned their deficit to win 2-1 in extra time, and their players found the bottle after the final whistle. Lionel Messi and his teammates laughed as they examined the notes on the bottle before passing it among themselves. Luis Martin, Argentina’s fitness coach, posted a photo of the incident on his Instagram account, writing, “What a loss. We didn’t have the same plan.” Martin later deleted the post, but the images and video clip had already gone viral, becoming a trending topic on social media.