The Day I Went Down the 2014 Rabbit Hole
Man, sometimes you just get stuck on a topic, right? It happened to me this past week. I was scrolling through some old soccer clips—just killing time after dinner—and YouTube threw up a highlight reel of Argentina’s run in the 2014 World Cup. That team was stacked, but obviously, they didn’t finish the job. Anyway, it got me thinking about one guy in particular: José Sosa.
My buddy swore up and down that Sosa had made the final 23-man squad. I remembered him being involved, but I was pretty sure he was one of the last guys cut. We spent nearly an hour arguing over text, just stubborn about this decade-old roster spot. That’s when I decided I needed to settle it, officially. Forget the vague memory, I needed the cold, hard, documented proof. This turned into a whole afternoon project.
Starting the Search: Hitting Dead Ends and Messy Wikis
My first move was the obvious one: punching “Argentina 2014 World Cup squad official” into the search bar. You’d think this would be easy, but it immediately gets complicated. The internet is flooded with two lists: the preliminary 30-man squad, and the actual, final 23-man squad. People constantly mix them up.
I started skimming articles, but they all contradicted each other slightly or linked back to some shady soccer forum. I needed the source—the list submitted to FIFA by the Argentine Football Association (AFA) right before the deadline. Trying to dig up a press release from June 2014 from the AFA website felt like trying to find a specific grain of sand on a massive beach. Seriously, their archives were a nightmare to navigate. I spent a good twenty minutes just fighting poor website design from ten years ago.
I realized relying on secondary news reports was a recipe for failure, especially for the guys who were cut late. Everyone remembers the stars, but verifying the fifth reserve defender is tough.
Developing the Verification Grind
This is where I stopped searching and started validating. I decided I couldn’t trust any single source. I had to build the final list myself by cross-referencing three separate, high-authority sources and looking specifically for the official confirmation date—June 2, 2014, the official FIFA submission deadline.
My method looked like this:
- Source 1: The FIFA Archives. I finally managed to locate the actual FIFA tournament documents (which were PDF files tucked away deep inside their old media portal). This was the bedrock. I copied all 23 names exactly as they were listed.
- Source 2: Major Wire Service Reports (Reuters/AP). I filtered my search results to only show articles published between June 2nd and June 5th, 2014, specifically looking for articles that mentioned the cuts from the 30-man squad. This confirmed the exclusions.
- Source 3: Reputable Fan/Data Sites. I used sites like Transfermarkt and certain historical soccer databases purely to verify the positions and club affiliations at the time, making sure the names matched the context.
The real work was dealing with the guys who didn’t make it. The 30-man list included some big names who were controversially dropped, and these guys are often mistakenly included in quick online lists. I specifically hunted for news confirming that Gabriel Mercado, Fabián Rinaudo, Lisandro López, and the three others were definitely sent home.
The Moment of Truth: Checking the Cuts
I compiled my confirmed 23-man roster. It took me nearly two hours of focused work, jumping between translated AFA press releases and old PDFs. I literally typed out the list myself into a spreadsheet, just to make sure I wasn’t missing anyone.
And guess what? My memory was right, and my friend was wrong. I confirmed my hunch about Sosa. José Sosa, the player we were arguing about, was included in the 30-man preliminary squad but was cut when they went down to the final 23. The official documentation showed he was left out alongside players like Otamendi and Banega. That was the official confirmation right there.
This list confirms the 23 players who actually flew to Brazil:
- Goalkeepers: Romero, Andújar, Orión.
- Defenders: Garay, Fernández, Zabaleta, Rojo, Demichelis, Campagnaro, Basanta.
- Midfielders: Mascherano, Gago, Biglia, Di María, Maxi Rodríguez, Pérez, Álvarez.
- Forwards: Messi, Higuaín, Agüero, Palacio, Lavezzi, Di Santo.
Wait, I just noticed something else after reviewing my final sheet. I actually typed Di Santo on the list, and then I double-checked my Source 1 PDF. He wasn’t there! That was a quick error check that saved me embarrassment. I quickly scrubbed him off my final internal document and re-verified the final 23rd name. It was actually Ricky Álvarez. See? Even with meticulous checking, the names are hard to nail down a decade later.
I finally got the answer I needed, all documented, verified, and cross-referenced. My friend owed me a coffee. But more importantly, I had the definitive historical record for future arguments. If you ever need to verify a specific player’s status from that squad, trust me, you need to go directly to the archived FIFA documents. Skip the confusing early news reports. It saves you the headache I just went through.