I agree that the accusations of shit talking seen overblown. But even though you don't want to talk about LvG's past relationship with South American players, I think you are wrong on that because it's actually the most relevant part for understanding the tone of the match-up going in.

Regardless of it anything he said was meant to be overtly provocative, the Argentina players themselves (rather than just the fans) expressed feeling insulted by it in interviews afterwards. Their "changing room" history with the man is what colored their perceptions of the comments last week.

For the fans, they are seeing translations (who knows how accurate) and while "light" on their own they are reminiscent of bitter old slights, bringing those things back to the surface. Or could seen passive aggressive in that context

But I think the it's important that we saw the topo gigio multiple times over the game. People know that wasn't a random choice, so where they see smoke they look for fire.