page_title: Argentina–Brazil football rivalry
section_title: 1990 World Cup (The "holy water" scandal)
hierarchical_section_title: Argentina–Brazil football rivalry / Incidents and historical matches / 1990 World Cup (The "holy water" scandal)
caption_attribution_description: English: Claudio Caniggia dribbling during the match between Argentina and Brazil in the 1990 World Cup.
context_page_description: The Argentina–Brazil football rivalry is a sports rivalry between the national football teams of the two countries and their respective sets of fans. Games between the two teams, even those that are only friendly matches, are often marked by notable and sometimes controversial incidents. This rivalry is also called the "Battle of the Americas." FIFA have described it as the "essence of football rivalry", ESPN FC ranked it top of their list of rivalries between national sides, while CNN ranked it second on their top 10 list of international rivalries—only below the older England–Scotland football rivalry.
  Even to passionate football fans, Argentina–Brazil matches are often noteworthy for the sheer level of competitiveness and talent of the two squads. Brazil and Argentina are the two teams with the highest average Elo Rating calculated over the entire team history, with 1994 and 1984 respectively. Both are also routinely ranked among the top ten national teams in the world in both the FIFA World Rankings and the World Football Elo Ratings.
context_section_description: The last time both teams met in a World Cup match was in 1990, which featured Argentina defeating Brazil 1–0 with a goal from Claudio Caniggia after a pass from Diego Maradona. The end of the match was controversial, however, with Brazilian player Branco accusing the Argentina training staff of giving him a bottle of water laced with tranquillizers while they were tending to an injured player. Years later, Maradona admitted the truth on an Argentine television show, saying that Branco had been given "holy water". The Argentine Football Association and the team coach of the time, Carlos Bilardo, denied that the "holy water" incident ever took place, though prior to the previous denial Bilardo said of Branco's allegation: "I'm not saying it didn't happen."
caption: Claudio Caniggia dribbling in the 1990 World Cup match won by Argentina 1–0
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