Full-time: Argentina 3-1 Switzerland after extra-time in their quarterfinal at Kansas City Stadium. For Argentina: Alexis Mac Allister (10), Julian Alvaraz (112), Lautaro Martinez (120); For Switzerland: Dan Ndoye (67).
Argentina do not know how to make this easy. Three knockout games. Three escapes that will live in World Cup folklore long after this tournament ends.
Cape Verde nearly did it. Egypt had Argentina two goals down before the great escape. This time, it was 10-man Switzerland, defending with remarkable resolve and pushing the world champions all the way to the 112th minute before Julian Alvarez finally delivered the decisive blow.
And Messi? Dangerous, but unusually quiet in front of goal.
The Argentina captain’s remarkable World Cup scoring streak came to an end after nine consecutive matches on the scoresheet, the longest such run in the tournament’s history. Yet, even without a goal, Messi still shaped the contest. His pinpoint corner created Alexis Mac Allister’s opener, taking his tally to 10 World Cup assists across six editions, the most by any player in the competition’s history. He threatened on several occasions in the second half and extra time but was unable to add to his tally of eight goals at this World Cup.
Argentina 3-1 Switzerland, FIFA World Cup quarterfinal: Highlights
It looked routine to begin with. Ten minutes on the clock and Alexis Mac Allister rose above two defenders, meeting Messi’s corner and glancing it into the far corner. Arrowhead erupted. Blue and white smoke, thousands of voices, the whole stadium bouncing. Job done, surely. Argentina would cruise from here.
They did not cruise. Not even close.
Switzerland had other ideas. Murat Yakin sent his players out to press, to pass, to make life uncomfortable, and for long stretches of that first half they had the better of it. Argentina sat back, content, maybe even a little sloppy. Lisandro Martnez switched off on the half hour and let Embolo run clean through, only for Emiliano Martnez to come flying off his line and smother the danger before it turned disastrous. A warning. Nobody took it seriously enough.
The second half is when this game turned into a genuine fight. Switzerland kept coming, kept believing, and in the 67th minute they got what they deserved. Ricardo Rodriguez picked out Dan Ndoye with a delicious ball and the winger swept it home the first time. Silence around the champions. Noise from the Swiss end. Suddenly, this was not the procession anyone expected.
Then madness. Five minutes later, Breel Embolo hit the turf inside the box, clutching at nothing, looking for a penalty that never existed. VAR was called in. The review took an age. Second yellow card. Red. Off Embolo went down the tunnel, and Switzerland were suddenly down to ten men with the biggest half hour of their footballing lives still ahead of them.
By any normal logic, they should have finished it there and then. It did not. What followed was some of the most heroic defending this World Cup has produced. Switzerland threw bodies at everything. Blocks on the line, last-ditch tackles, keeper Kobel standing tall when he needed to. Ten men against the reigning world champions, running on fumes, refusing to fold.
Mac Allister somehow headed wide with the goal gaping. Messi curled one narrowly off the post. Normal time ended with both teams level at 1-1, and Switzerland had somehow survived the storm.
Extra time began, and still they would not break. Wave after wave crashed against that Swiss defence and kept coming back empty. It felt like this would go all the way to penalties, and given how heroic Switzerland had been, nobody would have bet against them there.
Then, in the 112th minute, magic.
Julian Alvarez picked the ball up just outside the box, shifted it onto his right foot, and unleashed a strike that will be shown on highlight reels for years to come. Twenty-five yards out, dipping, swerving, absolutely unstoppable, into the top corner past a helpless Kobel. The Argentina bench emptied. Grown men in tears. This is what a World Cup semi-final ticket looks like when it is earned the hard way.
Lautaro Martinez piled on more misery in the closing minutes, stabbing home a rebound to make it 3-1 and put the game to bed for good. By then Switzerland had nothing left to give. Ten men, extra time, a champion side throwing everything at them. Nobody could have asked for more from Yakin’s group. They just ran into a team that refuses to lose. Now comes the fixture the entire tournament has been building towards.
ARGENTINA VS ENGLAND. ATLANTA. WEDNESDAY.
Now it is England against Argentina, with a place in the FIFA World Cup final at stake.
Forty years have passed since the Hand of God. Forty years since Diego Maradona danced through half of England’s team at the Azteca, breaking a nation’s heart twice in the same afternoon, first through outrageous deception and then through extraordinary brilliance. The shadow of the Falklands still lingers over every meeting between these two nations, a rivalry shaped by far more than football.
Now Lionel Messi gets his chance to write his own chapter in the fixture that has defined Argentine football folklore for an entire generation. In what is expected to be his final World Cup, he faces the one opponent that carries history unlike any other.
Argentina arrive unbeaten in their last 12 World Cup matches. They are one victory away from another final and just one step from becoming the first team since Brazil in 1962 to successfully defend the World Cup.
Nothing about this Argentina side is comfortable to watch. Nothing comes easily. Yet if they have shown one quality throughout this tournament, it is an uncanny ability to survive. Time and again, when the pressure has peaked and the odds have narrowed, they have found a way.
Atlanta is set for a night that could echo through history.
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