Lionel Messi changed pace and transformed another World Cup epic.
One of greatest ever knock-out upsets becomes one of the greatest ever comebacks. Egypt might call it one of the great injustices. Argentina, for now, won’t care.
This 3-2 victory over a spirited and justifiably aggrieved Egypt again exposed so many issues, but also so much fortitude – not least that of probably the greatest player of all time.
The defending champions badly lack the quality and energy of 2022, but they have Messi and they have fight, and that makes them maybe the most box-office team of this tournament.
There is immense emotional drama in every match, taking a theme of the tournament to new peaks. Messi and his teammates were in tears afterwards.
That is how close Egypt came to a rare mega upset in the knock-out stages.
They’d put it up to Argentina in every sense, including some proper square-ups in the final minutes after the game threatened to boil over after so many contentious moments.
In the end, Egypt just dropped to the ground, exhausted. They could be proud, but also feel a sense of what might have been.
That doesn’t just apply to the remarkable decision for VAR to overrule a brilliant Mostafa ‘Ziko’ Abdelraouf breakaway goal for a relatively innocuous foul at the other end of the pitch, or a possible trip on Mohammed Salah in the box just before Enzo Fernandez’s own breakaway winner.
There were also all the counters that really had Argentina sweating.
For all the justifiable focus on Messi and Fernandez’s headed winner, there should be special mention for Leandro Paredes.
It was his brilliant challenge with the game at a knife-edge 2-2 that didn’t just stop another of those perilous Egyptian counters but also started a move for Argentina.
That was crucial, but still not as important as Messi.
It is remarkable how bad he’d been given his eventual influence on the game.
He played most of it at walking pace, aptly illustrating the lethargy of this stale side.
Another missed penalty was itself a summation of that, almost half-hearted.
By then, Argentina were already 1-0 down to Yasser Ibrahim’s opening header.
It was like Argentina just couldn’t cope with their speed on the counter from then on in. That was even without Salah operating at anything like his most fearsome pace.
It could have been so much worse. It seemed to collapse altogether when Ziko – named after the great Brazilian whose key goal ended Argentina’s first title defence in 1982 – plundered a second.
That, many on the Egyptian side would argue, should have been 3-0.
It didn’t seem to matter at that point, as Argentina just couldn’t inject any urgency into the game.
That wasn’t hard to see why, since they play a very compact midfield for the purposes of protecting and releasing Messi, without much width elsewhere.
It still looks like that could be a problem, and one that will eventually catch up with them.
But then, you could see why they do it.
The turn was all the more remarkable since Messi had been so listless, looking almost defeated. He had that ashen face that characterised so many previous disappointments in the World Cup.
And here he was now facing a huge humiliation, all the criticism about indulged and aged stars ready to pour in.
It instead transpired he was just saving his best for when it was most required.
Around the 73rd minute, six minutes after Ziko’s goal, Messi suddenly picked the ball up at the corner of the Egyptian box and weaved straight through at pace.
It was the first time he’d done anything like that in the box, and it was as if a switch had been flicked.
There’d certainly been a shift in the game. There was a new intensity about Argentina, as Egypt just drastically dropped back.
That in some ways made it worse for them, as Argentina availed of their other great goalscoring weapon in this World Cup: the centre-backs.
On 79 minutes, from that same right side, Messi dropped in the perfect cross for Cristian Romero to head in.
Goalkeeper Mostafa Shobeir, previously the hero in saving Messi’s missed penalty and so many great saves, could have done so much better for it.
Argentina were back in it, and their talisman was back on it. Duly, as the ball dropped in the area after Lauturo Martinez did so well to keep it in play, it was like time stopped for a millisecond.
It was the opposite of the penalty. Rather than having time to think, Messi had that extra-sensory perception in an instance, to drive a brilliant equaliser in off the bar.
He’d delivered, an eighth goal at this World Cup – already matching Kylian Mbappe’s golden boot from the last World Cup – to make it 21 in history. A record of four missed penalties was by that point forgotten, even if it should be something Argentina are conscious of ahead of what comes next.
Everything looked to be going their way, until that one last Egypt attack that seemed to break for Salah.
The ball was taken off him and perhaps it was a foul.
Alexis Mac Allister was streaking away, where it briefly looked like Argentina’s lack of pace would cost them another opportunity. Instead, he supplied a fine cross of his own, for Fernandez to score a 92nd-minute winner.
The emotion they have made famous over the last 12 years then erupted, the tears, Messi being lifted into the air, the fans staying a long time after the final whistle to sing.
That emotion also clearly infuses their play.
The defending world champions are so flawed but they are able to seemingly fight through any match.
This is why they may still be such a challenge for England, should they get there and defeat Norway, even if everyone was looking at how that side of the draw has opened up. Colombia or Switzerland await Messi and co. in the quarter-finals in Kansas City.
For Egypt, a proud campaign is closed. It could have been so much more.
Few offer more than Messi, and it somehow made another epic even more than it would have been.
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