There are matches that smell of history, that exude rivalry, that are destined to become myths and that will be forever embedded in individual and collective memory. Today’s England-Argentina semifinal in Atlanta is not just another match. Neither for one side nor the other because it directly appeals to their identity. For both, it is the challenge of the great symbol. For the Albiceleste, facing the English refers to revenge for national and nationalist wounds, and that is how they sing it – fans and players, by the way. For the Three Lions, the memory of what happened in 1986 at the Azteca is an affront, because of the cheating on the first goal, because of the humiliation of the second.
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It has been 7,551 days since the last time the two teams faced each other: it was a friendly in Geneva (3-2 with an English comeback with a double from Owen in the 88th and 92nd minutes). But it has been even longer, 24 years, since the last official encounter, in Sapporo, at the 2002 World Cup (Beckham decided it with a penalty).
24 years since the last official duel
It has been 7,551 days since the last time the two teams faced each other in a friendly
So much time has passed that several generations live off hearing past legends and not even Leo Messi, who has done everything, who showed the Barça shirt at the Bernabéu, who desecrated Maracanã in a final against Brazil and who stitched the third star on the badge, knows what it means to face the great rival. Jorge Valdano said to define him that “Messi is Maradona every day” but the World Cup has given him another huge challenge: to be what Pelusa was and do what he did against the English, to emulate him to escape Diego’s last shadow.
After all they have asked him to be (captain, leader, winner, champion, the best…), today he must be a general on the pitch. And he has to climb the mountain of the great symbol at 39 years old.
Diego’s last shadow
At 39, the Albiceleste’s number ten has a semifinal to extend his cycle and emulate Maradona’s great day
At that age, in 2000, Maradona participated in the tribute to Lothar Matthäus in Munich. His silhouette was potbellied, very overweight. He was a retired footballer and looked like a retiree. Nothing like the toned Messi, carefully prepared for this event where he will become the oldest player to play a semifinal and will do so with full protagonism, fighting for the Golden Boot… in his 33rd match in the history of the tournament, surely the penultimate.
Although such allegorical weight is not new for Leo, accustomed to a higher demand after his entire career at the elite in Europe. In the Champions League he had many important clashes with English clubs, to whom he scored 27 goals in 36 individual matches, including the two finals in Rome and Wembley against Manchester United wearing the Barça shirt.
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The long wait
England has been waiting six decades to return to a World Cup final, since they hosted and won it in 1966
If Messi never faced England, several members of Scaloni’s technical staff did experience that religious experience. Ayala, Samuel, and Aimar can speak in the first person. And the coach himself, with a demeanor opposite to Bilardo’s, eliminated them in the U-20 World Cup in Malaysia before becoming champion.
Also, five of Scaloni’s usual starters play in the Premier League and Julián, before going to Atlético, played for City. Despite the tournament’s agonies, they are used to that physical and fast pace promoted by the pross and especially under the German Thomas Tuchel, who seeks to be the first foreign coach to lead a national team that is not his own to the crown.
Wearing the away shirt
Argentina will play with the second kit, black and blue, which is already seen as a sign linking them to the 1986 and 1998 duels
And superstitions serve where football does not reach. Argentina, the visitor in Atlanta, will play with the second kit, black and blue, which has already been seen in the country as a sign linking them to the 1986 knockout (Maradona’s 2-1) and the 1998 World Cup, where after the 2-2 it went to penalties, which favored their interests and eliminated England.
However, all previous duels between the contenders do not reach the sporting relevance of this one, which is the prelude to a final. The winner, after 90 or 120 minutes or the penalty shootout, will go to New York to play Spain on Sunday. Almost nothing. England has been waiting six decades to return to a World Cup final, since they hosted and won it in 1966. For Argentina, defending champions, it would mean continuing to extend a wonderful cycle to try to repeat the success of Qatar, something no one has achieved since Pelé. And Messi would even equal the two consecutive finals that Maradona achieved at the zenith of his career in Mexico and Italy.
This type of highly publicized matches, with so much tension and symbolism, you know when they start but never when they end.
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