Argentina national football team: full squad and key players at the 2026 World Cup

Argentina reach the 2026 World Cup as the team everyone else is chasing. Lionel Scaloni has kept the spine of the side that won the trophy in Qatar and folded in a younger generation around it, and the squad that opened this tournament is deep enough to survive a genuine scare and still look like contenders. Here is the full Argentina national football team squad for 2026, the players who matter most, and where the reigning champions stand right now.

Argentina’s full 2026 World Cup squad

The Argentina national football team players named by Lionel Scaloni for the 2026 World Cup number 26, split across the usual four position groups. This is the group defending the title Argentina won in 2022.

Goalkeepers: Emiliano Martínez, Gerónimo Rulli, Juan Musso.

Defenders: Nahuel Molina, Gonzalo Montiel, Cristian Romero, Nicolás Otamendi, Lisandro Martínez, Marcos Senesi, Nicolás Tagliafico, Facundo Medina.

Midfielders: Rodrigo De Paul, Leandro Paredes, Enzo Fernández, Alexis Mac Allister, Exequiel Palacios, Giovani Lo Celso, Valentín Barco.

Forwards: Lionel Messi, Lautaro Martínez, Julián Álvarez, Nicolás González, Giuliano Simeone, José Manuel López, Thiago Almada, Nico Paz.

The list leans heavily on European football. Spain’s LaLiga supplies the biggest single block of players, with the Premier League and France’s Ligue 1 close behind, and a handful of the squad now play their club football in the United States. What has not changed is the core: most of the men who started the 2022 final are still here.

Who are Argentina’s key players?

Everything still runs through Lionel Messi. He turned 39 during the tournament and has said this will be his last World Cup, but he arrived in the form of his life for a player of that age, scoring in the group stage and again in the knockouts. Now at Inter Miami, he is captain, playmaker and set-piece taker, and Argentina’s biggest games keep bending around a single moment of his.

Up front alongside him, Lautaro Martínez is the recognised number nine. The Inter Milan striker was among the leading scorers in Serie A last season and gives Scaloni a striker who runs the channels and finishes the chances Messi creates. Julián Álvarez, now at Atlético Madrid after his move from Manchester City, offers a different threat again, dropping deeper and pressing relentlessly, and he can play as a lone striker or off Lautaro.

The midfield is where this Argentina side does its real work. Enzo Fernández of Chelsea sets the tempo, Liverpool’s Alexis Mac Allister links the lines and arrives late in the box, and Rodrigo De Paul does the covering and carrying that lets the other two push forward. That trio, all in their prime, is the engine that turned Argentina from a Messi team into a proper team.

At the back, Cristian Romero anchors the defence and remains one of the best ball-winning centre-backs in the world, while Nicolás Otamendi brings the experience of a career’s worth of finals. Behind them is Emiliano Martínez, the Aston Villa goalkeeper whose shootout record and knack for the decisive save have already rescued Argentina more than once.

Argentina’s emerging talent

Scaloni has not just leaned on the 2022 winners. The most eye-catching of the newer names is Nico Paz, the 21-year-old playmaker who left Real Madrid for Como in 2024 and turned into one of the most watchable players in Serie A, scoring 13 goals and setting up eight as Como qualified for the Champions League. Giuliano Simeone, son of Atlético Madrid coach Diego, has forced his way in on the wing with relentless pressing and direct running. Valentín Barco, an attacking left-back, has impressed in Ligue 1 with Strasbourg, and José Manuel López has scored freely for Palmeiras in Brazil. Atlético Madrid alone send six players to this World Cup, more than any other club, a sign of how much of Argentina’s spine now sits in Spain.

Who is Argentina’s coach?

Lionel Scaloni has been in charge since 2018 and is now one of the most successful managers in the country’s history. He took over a side that had just gone out in the round of 16 at the 2018 World Cup and rebuilt it into a team that won the 2021 Copa América, the 2022 World Cup and the 2024 Copa América in succession. His calm, low-drama approach and his willingness to trust younger players have defined the era, and he resisted the temptation to build the whole team around Messi even while getting the best out of him.

How are Argentina doing at the 2026 World Cup?

Argentina have reached the last 16, though not without a fright. They were pushed to extra time by debutants Cape Verde in the round of 32 before edging through 3-2, in a match far tighter than the champions would have wanted. Messi still scored, as he has done throughout the tournament, and Argentina’s greater quality eventually told.

Next they face Egypt in Atlanta on Tuesday, 7 July, with a place in the quarter-finals on offer. It is the first World Cup meeting between the two nations, and it lines up Messi against Mohamed Salah in what is easily the pick of the round. Argentina go in as heavy favourites, but the Cape Verde scare was a reminder that a knockout tournament punishes any drop in level.

Argentina’s recent honours

This is a squad carrying an unusual weight of recent silverware. Argentina won the 2021 Copa América to end a long wait for a major trophy, beat Italy in the 2022 Finalissima, then lifted the World Cup in Qatar later that year. They followed it up by retaining the Copa América in 2024. That run makes them the reigning world and continental champions at the same time, and it is the reason every opponent at this World Cup treats a game against Argentina as the tie of their tournament.

Argentina’s World Cup history

Argentina are three-time world champions. They won at home in 1978 under César Luis Menotti, with Mario Kempes top-scoring, then again in 1986 in Mexico, the tournament Diego Maradona made his own. The long wait for a third title ended in 2022, when Messi’s side beat France on penalties after a 3-3 final that is already remembered as one of the greatest ever played. Only Brazil, Germany and Italy have won the trophy more often. Add in three losing finals, including the 2014 defeat to Germany, and few countries carry as much World Cup history into a tournament as Argentina do.

For more on the sides chasing them, read our guide to the Portugal national football team squad and the current India national football team squad.

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