One more game for Lionel Messi as beaming, bouncing Argentina rises up for its football god

The Argentine songbook opened. Lionel Messi and his teammates weren’t leaving until they had gone through it cover-to-cover. Lisandro Martinez left the pitch and returned with a drum. He beat away at it, hitting a sticker showing Emi Martinez, the Argentina goalkeeper, making a save from Randal Kolo Muani in the last World Cup final. Argentina have made it back there, back in another final after yet another comeback. As the music played, Rodrigo De Paul held Messi in a long embrace. Cuti Romero then pulled them both in tight. Afterwards Enzo Fernandez lifted Messi on his shoulders and bounced him up and down.

When Messi slid off his beaming teammate, the crowd behind the goal began a slow chant of “Messsssi! Messssi!” They bowed to him. When Messi turned around, the rest of the Argentina team were doing it too. He sat down and soaked it all in, basking in the glory of Argentina’s win against England.

He’d never faced them before. He’d famously been told, in his prime, by deluded English commentators that he probably couldn’t do it on a cold and windy night in Stoke. But at 39, he still could do it in an air-conditioned dome in Atlanta. A few feet away from him, Giovanni Lo Celso laid out a banner. “The Malvinas are Argentine,” it read.

A past conflict with the British is still very present more than three decades on from the Falklands War. England-Argentina was more than just a game, more than a simple semi-final.

“He who does not jump is an Englishman,” the fans sang.

Almost everyone left in the stands bounced up and down. Messi didn’t want to leave. Why would he? The Mercedes-Benz Stadium has been the setting of two of Argentina’s most memorable performances. Not only this tournament. Perhaps ever. It was here that Argentina came back from 2-0 down with 11 minutes to go against Egypt. On Wednesday, they left it even later against England. They gave us more Messi moments, more mythos. “We thought the Egypt game was the peak,” Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni said. “I think this tops it.”

Messi is lifted up by his team-mates (Evrim Aydin/Anadolu via Getty Images)

As Messi’s teammates gathered around to celebrate their captain at full-time, you couldn’t help but think that this is more than a one-man show. It has to be when Messi is 39. He didn’t manage to score against England. There was no Hand of God and he did his impression of Maradona’s other famous goal from the 1986 game stride-for-stride many years ago, weaving like “a little eel” through the Getafe team while still a teenager for Barcelona.

As was the case against Switzerland in the quarter-final, Messi’s name was not up in lights. After scoring in nine consecutive World Cup games, he is, by his standards, in the midst of a drought. And yet he continues to leave a mark. In the absence of Angel Di Maria, who is retired from international duty, Messi drifts to the right, the space his old teammate used to occupy, the space Messi first played in as a kid coming through La Masia. He may no longer have the same ability to go at defenders over-and-over again. Not after playing extra-time in two of Argentina’s three knockout games before this. And yet it doesn’t matter. His aura still attracts defenders who, in turn, then leave his teammates wide open just as Fernandez was for his sensationally-hit equaliser.

Fernandez has stepped up just as he did four years ago. He headed in the clincher in Argentina’s comeback against Egypt. Then, in stoppage time, Messi crossed for Lautaro Martinez’s winner against England. Lautaro deserves to be more than an impact sub for the Albiceleste. Nevertheless he has performed the role brilliantly for Argentina since the knockouts began. He was the one who placed the ball on Fernandez’s head against Egypt. He was the one who wrapped things up in extra-time against Switzerland and, after the England game, he could barely get his words out. Each one tripping up over the emotion.

As happened four years ago, Argentina look into the abyss and see what no one else sees. They find light instead of darkness. Qualification rather than elimination. The English fans dressed as knights who threw up their swords when Anthony Gordon gave their team the lead vaporised like those in Raiders of the Lost Ark at full-time. Victoria Beckham comforted Sir David, her husband, the Inter Miami co-owner, the man who brought Messi to America. In the same area, Mick Jagger also looked on as Argentina’s street fighting men moved on.

How do Argentina keep doing it? They continue to go to the well and it is never empty. How long they’ve played this summer never seems to matter. How far they’ve travelled always, inexplicably, counts for little. They draw on reserves most oil-rich countries must envy. Energy is always found in one place deep down inside; it’s derived from giving Messi one more game. Another 90 minutes.

When every game feels like it might be his last the Argentina players make a sacrifice for their football god. They commit bodies to the cause. “We are unique,” Scaloni said. “And it’s not arrogance, it’s heart.”

Messi is cheered by team-mates and supporters (Odd ANDERSEN / AFP via Getty Images)

The World Cup dearly needed this ending, not a reheated repeat of the Euro 2024 final. There’s a freshness to an Argentina and Spain encounter. It pits Messi against the country that raised him. Messi against Lamine Yamal, the baby he anointed with a biblical sense of providence as a Barcelona player.

“Hopefully Spain is happy about Argentina advancing to the final after all of the happiness that Leo Messi has given that country over so many years,” Scaloni said. “I hope they can understand the difference (Messi) can make for me, I mean, what else does he have to do to be considered the best player of all time? I hope Spain can enjoy him. I know the Spanish love him…well, not all Spaniards. But most of Spain cares a lot about him.”

You can’t help but marvel too at Messi delivering on the promise Inter Miami extracted from him when he moved to the US in 2023. It is not his main focus. Winning a fourth star for his country remains his purpose. In parallel, however, by delivering at a World Cup co-hosted by the U.S., Messi continues to grow the game in America. He is a reason to keep watching long after the USMNT went out.

So bang the drums and sing the songs. Messi and Argentina are back in the World Cup final. A sense of destiny driving their Diez (No 10) and their Dios (God).