World Cup last 16: Egypt 2 (Ibrahim 15, Ziko 67) Argentina 3 (Romero 79, Messi 83, Enzo 90+3)
Lionel Messi produced his greatest moment of the 2026 World Cup yet, as Argentina beat Egypt 3-2 in an astonishing round of 16 game at Atlanta.
After more than 70 minutes in which the champions had looked utterly hopeless, Messi seized the game to ignite a scarcely believable comeback, creating the first for Cristian Romero then scoring the 2-2 himself with a scorching shot in off the crossbar.
You felt desperately sorry for Egypt, whose victory seemed almost certain as late as the 78th minute – but it was hard not to be seduced by the sheer drama and ecstasy of this Argentinian comeback. What other side in the World Cup is capable of this level of pure cinema?
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Like the heroes of TV’s golden age, Argentina are a compelling mixture of good and evil. Are dark villainous forces working on their behalf, smoothing the way for a third Messi appearance in the final – the fantasy script so many of us crave, but that Egypt for a long time looked likely to spoil?
Louis van Gaal maintains to this day that the outcome of the Argentina-Netherlands quarter-final in Qatar was “preordained”. The way Egypt were denied what looked a brilliant second goal at 1-0 up will feed those conspiracy theories. The problem for Gianni Infantino is that after the Balogun affair, no conspiracy theory is too outlandish.
And yet it was not Infantino arriving on to that knock-down on the edge of Egypt’s box to smash the equalising goal. It was Messi, with yet another flash of his unanswerable genius.
By the time Enzo Fernandez headed the 94th-minute winner from an end-to-end breakaway, Argentina’s victory already seemed inevitable.
Sitting here amid the weeping and hysterical celebrations at the final whistle, it seems beside the point to mention that for five-sixths of this game, Argentina looked an average side.
They speak endlessly of the merits of barbecues when it comes to team bonding. Here they ran like guys who eat too much barbecue.
The team that won in Qatar had Angel di Maria, a fast and skilful outlet on the wing, and an electric Julian Alvarez who was much more influential than the one who has been fighting his way back to full fitness at this World Cup.
Their diamond midfield seemed cramped and lacking dynamism, and for much of the game Messi wandered amid a thicket of defenders, unable to receive the ball or exert his influence.
Argentina’s captain had hardly touched the ball by the 14th minute, when Lisandro Martinez fouled Hany for an Egypt free-kick high on their right wing.
The ball came back towards Marwan Attia, deep on the right, and at the far post Yassir Ibrahim beat Lisandro to the diagonal cross and buried a crunching header past Emiliano Martinez.
The reaction in the stadium was one of consternation – 80 per cent of the crowd in Atlanta were wearing Argentina shirts, with the majority of those being American Messi stans.
Two minutes later, a blatant foul on Mohamed Salah in the Argentina D was ignored by the French referee, François Letexier. Salah smiled bitterly. Everyone at the World Cup now believes that Argentina have to foul you twice as hard to give away a free-kick.
In almost the next move, Tagliafico escaped down the left as Enzo Fernandez fed a pass into Egypt’s box and Haissem Hassan foolishly bundled the Argentinian left-back over. Letexier pointed immediately to the spot.
Earlier in the tournament we compared Messi to Achilles, and in common with the Greek he has a single vulnerability: in Messi’s case, a weird propensity to miss penalties at important moments.
A chunk of grass flew up past Messi’s face as he struck the penalty. Reassuring to see that even he sometimes kicks up a clod. The effort was weak and to the middle of the right half of the goal. Mostafa Shobeir made the save look easy.
Argentina seemed shaken by their disastrous start and Lionel Scaloni had his work cut out to calm them during the first water-break. There were several Argentina chances in the second quarter – MacAllister having a header saved, Messi hitting the post with a 25-yard free-kick, Shobeir saving brilliantly from Alvarez.
It was a similar pattern to England-DR Congo at the same stadium last week – the underdog taking the lead and their goalkeeper then bailing them out. The question was how Egypt would approach the second half.
Their habit when scoring first has been to dig in and defend the lead but they had been more aggressive in the first half. Maybe they had learned from their experience against Australia in the previous round, when their passivity had allowed their opponents back into it.
This time Egypt carried a counter-attacking sting, and on 59 minutes came the moment that then seemed likely to dominate the discussions and the legend of this game.
Mohamed Salah received the ball on a counter and measured a sublime outside of the foot pass into the area, towards Ziko on the far side.
As the ball traversed the penalty area, like a slowly rolling putt at the Masters, the whole stadium was frozen in anticipation of which of Martinez or Ziko would get there first.
But Salah had put just enough outside swerve on the pass to curve it away from the keeper and towards his team-mate, who clipped it joyously over Martinez into the net. Egypt’s entire squad ran to the celebrations by the corner flag and they only became aware quite late that the referees had a surprise in store.
A VAR with a long attention span had detected a possible infringement far, far back in the move. Replays showed that Marwan Attia had stood on the outside of the boot of Lisandro Martinez. The foul was at the other end of the pitch from the goal.
It is very difficult to imagine that Fifa referees would have disallowed an Argentina equaliser in similar circumstances. But that is what happened here.
It felt like justice when, 10 minutes later, Egypt went and did it again.
Salah again led the breakaway, drawing Romero and Leandro Paredes as he ran 40 yards up the middle and then, despite a shove from Paredes, found Hassan on the right.
Hassan, with almost insulting ease, accelerated to the byline and crossed low to Ziko, who had again escaped all markers and smashed it righteously into the gaping Argentinian goal.
That was it. The champions were going out. And the truth at that point was that they had looked unworthy champions. But in football only one truth is eternal. When you have Messi, it’s never really over.
It was Messi whose cross from the right found Cristian Romero breaking the Egyptian line to head powerfully beyond Shobeir.
It was Messi who caused chaos in the Egyptian defence with another astonishing run from the right, ball bouncing wildly but somehow still under his control, to create another chance for Martinez.
And of course it was Messi, four minutes later, created and then scored the equaliser. His cross from the right was deflected towards the far post in a high loop.
Lautaro bundled it back across, Paredes knocked it back towards the edge of the box, and there was Messi, as he always seems to be, arriving in the right place, getting to the ball before anyone else, meeting it with a thudding drive that crashed off the bar and in.
If you scripted this nonsense, nobody could believe it.
Egypt looked spent – how could it be otherwise, confronted as they had been with the force of inevitability?
Yet they mustered one last three-on-two breakaway, but this time Paredes broke it up with a crucial tackle.
Two minutes into the seven added, the end. Salah lost the ball dribbling into the Argentina box and they swiftly spirited it out to the right, towards Lautaro Martinez in space. He saw that only Enzo Fernandez was running on the far side, and his cross was measured superbly, inevitably on to the head of his team-mate, who soared and planted it back across goal and in.
Egypt appealed in vain for a VAR decision similar to the one that had been given against them, but the referees were not interested. Letexier brutally suppressed their rebellion with a flurry of yellow cards and a red for a member of the coaching staff.
Argentina are a team with obvious weaknesses, lacking in speed and energy, always liable to concede chances.
But as you go into the quarter-finals of the World Cup what would you rather be armed with? A pacy threat on the wings? Or a dark and brilliant alliance of plot armour, destiny and genius?
