The countdown to the 2026 World Cup is on! Each day ahead of the tournament’s return to North America, Yahoo Sports will highlight an insight or moment that showcases just how grand the world’s biggest sporting spectacle has become — even beyond the expanded field of this year’s global event.
In the 2022 World Cup, the quarterfinal between Argentina and the Netherlands was one for the books — the referee’s book, that is. During a tense, chippy matchup in Lusail, Qatar, referee Antonio Mateu Lahoz issued a record-setting 18 yellow cards before Argentina eventually won in a penalty shootout.
It didn’t take long for the first yellow card to be handed out, with assistant Argentina manager Walter Samuel getting cautioned a few minutes before Argentina’s Nahuel Molina scored the team’s first goal.
Shortly afterward, in the 43rd minute, Mateu Lahoz gave yellows to the Netherlands’ Jurrien Timber and Argentina’s Marcos Acuña. Two more cards were issued before the end of the second half, including one to Dutch striker Wout Weghorst, who was on the bench at the time.
Six more yellows would be handed out before the end of regulation, including two given in the more than 10 minutes of stoppage time tacked on at the end. In the 73rd minute, Lionel Messi scored a penalty kick — awarded after a light foul on Acuña just inside the box — that grew Argentina’s lead to 2-0 and may have exacerbated tensions even more.
Weghorst, subbing into the game while on a yellow, scored in the 83rd minute to pull the Oranje back into it. Then, in the 88th minute, Argentine midfielder Leandro Paredes followed up a bad tackle by kicking the ball right into the Netherlands’ bench, sparking a scrum that included many of the Dutch subs.
That fight led to a yellow for Paredes, as well as one for Argentina manager Lionel Scaloni.
Deep in stoppage time, Weghorst scored again to send the game to extra time, where three more players were penalized, including another off-field Dutch player — Steven Bergwjin — getting a yellow.
After the two teams stayed locked at 2-2, the match advanced to a penalty shootout — but the yellows didn’t stop. In the middle of the PKs, the Netherlands’ Denzel Dumfries and Noa Lang were both given more yellows after an altercation between kicks. Argentina ended up winning the shootout 4-3, but Dumfries was given a second yellow and subsequent red card for one more fight after the game was over.
The ending tally was eight yellow cards apiece for Argentina and the Netherlands’ players, plus a red for Dumfries and two more yellows for Argentina’s coaching staff. 18 yellow cards in all — a World Cup record.
Afterward, Lahoz faced significant criticism for losing control of the dramatic match, and for some of the controversial calls that colored the match. Still, we all know the rest of the story, as Argentina went on to win it all, after another penalty shootout against France.
