Lionel Messi set up two goals in the closing stages of Argentina’s World Cup semifinal against England on Wednesday to complete a stunning comeback at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium, sending the defending champions to a final against Spain with a 2-1 victory that carried the weight of one of football’s most emotionally loaded rivalries.
England had taken the lead early in the second half and appeared to be managing the game toward a historic result before Argentina’s captain became the story he almost always becomes when his team needs him most. Messi created the equalizer with an assist on a long-range strike and then delivered the cross for a stoppage-time header that sealed a victory his country had wanted with an intensity that went far beyond the scoresheet.
Why this win meant more than most
Messi acknowledged after the match that this particular victory carried a significance that even a World Cup semifinal does not always contain. He described the emotion in the stadium as unlike anything else in the tournament, driven by the specific history between Argentina and England that has accumulated across four decades of competitive meetings and one armed conflict. He said his fans wanted this result more than any other, precisely because of what it meant to beat England in a semifinal on the way to another final.
The rivalry’s history includes Diego Maradona’s infamous handball goal in 1986 and the dismissal of a prominent England player in 1998 that became one of that match’s defining moments. Both previous World Cup meetings ended in Argentine victories, but Wednesday’s looked headed in England’s direction for much of the second half before Argentina refused to accept the outcome.
How the comeback happened
Argentina entered the final stages of the match trailing by a single goal, their tournament seemingly slipping away from them in normal time. A substitute entered for Argentina late and within minutes the game had changed completely. Enzo Fernandez scored the equalizer with a long-distance strike after Messi played him into the opportunity, and then in the second minute of stoppage time the same substitute headed home a cross from Messi to complete a reversal that will rank among the most memorable moments in Argentine football history.
Lautaro Martinez, the striker who came off the bench and scored both of the goals attributed to his role in the comeback, was emotional afterward, describing the difficulty of processing what had just happened in real time and reflecting on the collective quality that had allowed Argentina to maintain belief when the situation looked against them. He credited the energy of the crowd and the quality of the play once the team found its rhythm in the second half as the factors that made the impossible seem achievable.
A banner and a statement
After the final whistle, Argentine players held up a banner declaring that the Falkland Islands belong to Argentina, a message directed at their English opponents that connected the football match to the 1982 conflict between the two countries. The banner carried a political message that football’s governing body generally prohibits in competitive settings, and the organization had not confirmed whether it would take action against Argentina for the display at the time of publication.
Argentina will face Spain in the final on Sunday, meeting a team that has conceded only one goal across seven matches in the tournament. The challenge of breaking through one of the most organized defensive structures in the competition is the next problem for Messi and his team, but for one night in Atlanta, the celebration was entirely about what had just been accomplished against England rather than what comes next against Spain.
