To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. That sentiment didn’t apply to this group, at least. Amid relentless, rolling noise inside Atlanta’s massive climate-controlled dome, England reached the end of the journey, the limits of their ability at this World Cup, the exhaustion of every mechanism within the side. Above all, they collided with Lionel Messi, who wasn’t prepared to finish just yet. Definitely not in this fashion.
Fifty-five minutes in, England were actually ahead, 1-0 thanks to Anthony Gordon’s finish, virtually the only flash of true clarity they produced all afternoon. Then, as a living, breathing force, they simply evaporated from the contest.
England performed badly here. The replacements made no impact. Harry Kane essentially completed some mild cardio near a World Cup semi-final. But it was the substitution that really undid them, one of those junctures where time seems to reverse, the atmosphere darkens, reality bends, and the stadium’s entire energy suddenly orbits around that slumped, wandering figure in deep blue, who from a standing start had begun to do strange, devastating things, to collapse space, to bend every element to his will. And sensing too the absence of pushback from the opposition. Suddenly everyone on the pitch existed inside the Messi bubble.
Fast forward to the 91st minute, the score somehow still 1-1, a result that by now looked like an error, a placeholder, and it was inevitably Messi who delivered the decisive incision. At that point England were strewn like castaways around their own penalty area, withered, drained, a lone skeletal hand somehow still clutching the wheel.
Alexis Mac Allister had just rattled the post with a low drive. Djed Spence, who chased relentlessly to the very end here, managed to dart in front of Messi for a second and prod the ball clear. But it was only ever borrowed. Facing two full-backs now, Spence and Nico O’Reilly, Messi simply drifted into the space where a third defender should have been, utterly alone on that portable rectangle of green.
The cross from his right boot was weighted with exquisite care, lofted into the only reasonable corridor, like someone explaining a mathematical problem with immense, patient precision. For an instant the ball seemed suspended, a soft white globe, time stretching taut, as every spectator in the stadium became Messi, witnessing the moment before it unfolded.
‘Even after the final whistle Messi kept walking, locating gaps, drifting clear of the prone bodies of his teammates.’ Photograph: Xinhua/Shutterstock
Time snapped forward again, Lautaro Martínez nodded the ball beyond a sprawled Jordan Pickford and into the England goal. And that was it, the conclusion that had been approaching from the instant Messi started to recognise the game’s endpoint, to sense the snarls and side narratives dissolve, to understand it was time to apply his full force to the patterns ahead of him.
There were a few final twitches from the remains of England’s tournament, though it felt like watching a tired theatrical parody of English football, Dan Burn hurling his frame around the Argentina box beneath high deliveries, collapsing to the grass like a double mattress tossed from an upper window.
But the contest was over. England had shrivelled in the face of this occasion, had failed to apply pressure when chances existed, had ultimately been overwhelmed by sheer presence, erased by a category of sporting brilliance that, even on its quieter, more jumbled days, will eventually discover its form.
The final whistle unleashed an endless cascading wave of sound. Yet even now Messi kept walking, locating open space, slipping away from the slumped shapes of his colleagues, both fists pumping at the core of all that heat and brightness.
England were unmistakably poor here, a semi-final they essentially discarded. They generated almost no menace, no vitality, no sense they could grab the day. There will be time to dissect that decay, to identify the cracks, to imagine what might have unfolded differently, from selection choices to the deeply familiar feeling of freezing under the spotlight.
But this was Messi’s stage, and Messi’s occasion. He will now feature in his third World Cup final, the oldest outfield player ever to appear in that showcase, as well as the finest. This time has felt different too. There had already been something fresh in Messi’s performances during that tense route to the final. He appeared at times on the verge of something, like a figure jolting awake with a start.
Messi has always held one crucial advantage over every other footballer. He gets to play alongside Messi every match. And Messi elevates everyone else on his side. He generates a distinct gravitational field, drenching teammates in borrowed radiance. And he invariably has the finest time, because every fixture is a Messi fixture. Consider it: this is someone who has literally never taken part in a game of football where Messi isn’t present. Every day is a Messi day. No wonder he adores the sport. Watching, there are occasions you want to tap him on the shoulder and murmur: “You do realise it isn’t always like this, don’t you?”
How would England approach this, because Messi is endlessly mapped, planned for, circumvented. Thomas Tuchel opted for power and pace in broad terms, with Morgan Rogers introduced on the right. For the specific Messi problem at left-back, Spence, the in-form figure, talismanic presence, and almost mythical favourite of this England squad.
Atlanta Stadium is a genuine downtown venue, emerging from the grid of high rises and glass structures like an enormous jagged silver meteorite lodged within the urban slope.
Lionel Messi celebrates after providing the cross for Lautaro Martínez to score Argentina’s winner. Photograph: Rebecca Blackwell/AP
The colours and formations were hypnotic at kick-off, those blocks of deep blue, white, crimson gold so beautifully matched. The anthems beforehand were pure energy, inarticulate voltage.
A minute and twenty seconds in, Jude Bellingham was hacked down by Leandro Paredes, and it felt like an obligatory formality, like the ceremonial knock that opens a parliamentary session.
Messi’s opening act was to wriggle through a crush of bodies, moving as ever on his own plane of space and time. He tumbled. No foul. Outrage. Almost at once Paredes chopped down Anderson and was cautioned. The initial collision of jerseys, the ritual dance.
From there, the match never truly ignited. England had their opportunity in that first period to apply sustained pressure, to push with greater urgency. Messi kept strolling, operating at the margins, a player for whom the game so often means biding his time.
But they failed to flood the open spaces when they materialised, grabbed the lead, then almost immediately collapsed as Messi began to tug the threads, to glide beyond white shirts, to deliver those cruel, dropping passes.
By the end this felt like two narratives intertwined. An England side that flinched, that could not respond to its coach’s demands; but also one that was swallowed by the inevitability of Messi, a grand, once-in-an-era genius who is somehow still roaming across this stage, shrinking it to his own dimensions, and who isn’t ready to be denied just yet.
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