As political pressure grows before Saturday’s scheduled fixture in Jerusalem, the Argentina national football team has called off their final World Cup warm-up friendly match against Israel.

The match, scheduled to be played at Jerusalem’s Teddy Kollek Stadium was to be Argentina’s last before they begn their Russia 2018 World Cup campaign against Iceland on 16 June

Although there was no initial reaction from the Israeli FA or from Israeli politicians on the cancellation, reports say that the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu had called the Argentinian president, Mauricio Macri, to ask him to persuade the team not to cancel their visit.

The visit of the two-time World Cup winners had attracted huge interest among Israeli fans, mainly because of Lionel Messi’s planned participation in the fixture.

Palestinians celebrated the cancellation as people in Gaza and Ramallah in the West Bank cheered. The Palestinian Football Association later issued a statement thanking Messi and his colleagues for calling off the game.

“The Palestinian FA thanks Argentina’s players led by star Messi for refusing to be used to serve a non-sporting goal. Values, morals and sport have secured a victory today and a red card was raised at Israel through the cancellation of the game,” the Palestinian FA chairman, Jibril Rajoub said in the statement.

Rajoub, who had on Sunday called on Palestinians to burn replica jerseys and pictures of Messi  called a news conference for Wednesday in Ramallah, which would hold outside the Argentinian representative’s office.

The stadium which was to host the match is in West Jerusalem. The Palestinians want the eastern part of the city as the capital of a future state that will include the Gaza Strip and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

However, the status of Jerusalem is highly sensitive. The match was originally planned to be played in Haifa but Israeli authorities contributed funding for it to be moved to Jerusalem, irking Palestinians further after US President Donald Trump’s recognition of the city as Israel’s capital

The cancellation is just one more obstacle for Argentina, whose World Cup preparations have been troubled, having suffered a 6-1 defeat by Spain in a friendly in March and losing their first-choice goalkeeper, Sergio Romero to injury.

The Albi Celeste will trade tackles with tournament debutants, Iceland, Croatia and Nigeria in what is regarded as the group of death at the 2018 global fiesta.