Los Pumas 7s: How Argentina Became the Best Sevens Team in the World
Los Pumas 7s Argentina sevens rugby is one of the great success stories in the modern game — a team that built from nothing into back-to-back World Series champions, producing two of the best sevens players on the planet in the process.
This is how Argentina conquered the fastest format in rugby.
The Tokyo Moment
The story of the modern Los Pumas 7s begins at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. A teenage Marcos Moneta — still barely known outside Argentina — scored six tries across the tournament, including two in a stunning win over South Africa, and finished as the competition’s top try-scorer.
Argentina won bronze. Moneta won hearts. And the rugby world learned a name it would not forget.
Later that year, Moneta became the first Argentine ever to win the World Rugby Men’s Sevens Player of the Year award. He was 21 years old.
Marcos Moneta: The Messi of Sevens
Calling any Argentine athlete “the Messi of” something risks hyperbole. In Moneta’s case, it is not far off.
The winger combines the football skills he developed as a child — Moneta played football seriously before switching to rugby — with extraordinary pace, instinct, and finishing ability. In sevens, where space is everything and decisions happen in fractions of seconds, he is almost impossible to contain in open field.
Red Bull athlete. World Player of the Year. Olympic bronze medallist. He is the most complete sevens player Argentina has ever produced, and one of the best in the world regardless of nationality.
Luciano González: The Engine
Alongside Moneta, Luciano González has been the engine of Argentina’s sevens dominance. Where Moneta dazzles, González works. The two players complement each other perfectly — pace and power, flair and function.
González’s consistency across the SVNS World Series has been one of the defining features of Argentina’s rise. In a format where individual errors can cost tournaments, his reliability has been invaluable.
The SVNS Series Dominance
Los Pumas 7s have become serial contenders on the HSBC SVNS World Series — the annual global circuit that takes rugby sevens to cities across the world, from Hong Kong to Los Angeles to Toulouse.
In the 2025-26 series, Argentina entered the SVNS Championship as one of the leading sides with 34 points, just behind South Africa. Their circuit included stops in New York, Singapore, and Bordeaux, with Moneta and González central to every campaign.
Why This Matters for the Fifteen-Man Game
The success of Los Pumas 7s is not separate from the growth of Argentine rugby — it is part of the same story. Players developed in the sevens programme bring pace, footwork, and instincts to the fifteen-man game that traditional forwards-and-kickers rugby cannot teach.
Marcos Moneta’s path to the Pumas XV runs directly through the sevens circuit. So does that of several other current squad members.
Argentina have built a rugby ecosystem that develops talent across all formats. The Pumitas produce the fifteen-man players of the future. The Pumas 7s produce the athletes who make Los Pumas dangerous in open play.
The result is a programme that is more complete than at any point in Argentine rugby history.
