{"id":29478,"date":"2026-03-21T10:57:40","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T08:57:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=29478"},"modified":"2026-03-21T10:57:40","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T08:57:40","slug":"argentina-to-play-mauritania-zambia-in-world-cup-warm-ups","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/argentina-to-play-mauritania-zambia-in-world-cup-warm-ups\/","title":{"rendered":"Argentina to play Mauritania, Zambia in World Cup warm-ups"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Argentina will face Mauritania and Zambia this month in World Cup warm-up matches, the South American nation&#8217;s \u200cfootball body (AFA) said on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Argentina had been due to play Spain in the &#8220;Finalissima&#8221; in Qatar, but the game was cancelled due to the conflict in the Middle East.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The national team will play a friendly against Mauritania as \u2060the squad begins its farewell to fans before departing to defend its World Cup title,&#8221; the AFA said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In a separate statement, the AFA added that Argentina &#8220;will face Zambia in its second friendly match of the FIFA Date&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The matches will be played at Boca Juniors&#8217; La Bombonera stadium on March 27 and March 31, respectively.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Mauritania had been scheduled to \u200cface \u2060Palestine in Morocco, but that game was also cancelled due to the conflict.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>It will be Argentina&#8217;s third game in a row against an African team, after a 2-0 victory in Angola in \u2060November.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Argentina had planned a friendly against Guatemala on March 31, but that match was cancelled after failing to receive FIFA approval because Guatemala \u2060were already scheduled to face Algeria in Italy.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Argentina begin their World Cup title defence on June 16 against Algeria, \u2060before facing Austria and Jordan in Group J.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":21509,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-29478","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Argentina will face Mauritania and Zambia this month in World Cup warm-up matches","published_date":"2026-03-21 10:30:34","news_description":"Argentina will face Mauritania and Zambia this month in World Cup warm-up matches","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/29478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/29478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29479,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/29478\/revisions\/29479"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=29478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}