Argentina avert disaster with controversial late comeback: World Cup Daily

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:30clipped in the box by Alvarez before the winner. VAR didn't get involved. It had earlier to disallow a glorious second for Egypt, not the light-touch refereeing we've seen so far in this tournament. It didn't look to have mattered. Egypt just went and scored another beauty. Messi had already missed from the spot. It makes no footballing sense that he's bad at penalties. Mustafa Shabir was brilliant in the Egyptian goal. Messi didn't do too much until the equaliser, but he and his team still have the chance to retain the trophy. They'll play Switzerland after beating Colombia on penalties. Gregor Koble, the hero, Ruben Vargas with the winning spot kick.

0:58Also today, we'll look ahead to the quarterfinals. US Soccer Editor Alex Abnos is on the host's whimpering exit. We'll answer your questions, and that's today's Guardian Football Weekly.

1:11On the panel today, with me in LA, Barry Glendening, welcome. Hi, Max. At your final pod, Archie Rintut. Hi, Max. What a journey it's been, and out in Miami, Barney Ronnie. Hey, Barney.

1:20Barney Ronay:Hi, everyone. Let's start then with that game in Atlanta. Argentina 3, Egypt 2. Argentina have never come back from two goals down at a World Cup. 20 minutes in, Archer, you said this game had already over-delivered and it hadn't even really started. What a football match. Breathless at times. And it will be overshadowed by the refereeing performance by Francois Le Texier, ultimately because of what happened in it, which is a shame because Egypt did so well for quite a period in this game, even if they gave up a lot of chances to Argentina. and Mustafa Shabir, as you say, he showed wonderful elasticity, I think, in goal.

1:58There were times when his arm was reaching out and you were kind of surprised that it still kept going to get the ball. Inspector Gadget. Inspector Gadget, that's the one. And for a long time, Lionel Messi did not look like the all-conquering Lionel Messi that we know him to be. With that penalty miss, his second at the tournament has you wondering, why can he not give this up? Because it's the only thing that I think he's not good at. I mean, we don't think that he's very good at heading, but we've not seen that all that much in his career. Yeah, the flick-ons. He'd never do it for Stevenage, would he, in League One anyway?

2:32Barney Ronay:He did score a brilliant header in a Champions League final. Oh, that's a good point. Exactly. That's the problem. There's always a counterpoint. Yeah, true. But yeah, Egypt go 2-0 up, having thought that they'd gone 2-0 up, and then the collapse comes when Argentina finally break them down with 10 minutes to play. Cristiano Romero heading in followed by Lionel Messi with a fantastically timed we're calling that a volley? Half volley probably Half volley Good, just checking and then there's that chance for Egypt to win it as well on the break Omar Mahmouche running through just has to beat Leandro Paredes but that's exactly the thing he doesn't do Paredes probably Argentina's best player throughout the 90 and yeah, shortly after after a contentious not given penalty decision.

3:22Enzo Fernandez wins it after good work from Lautaro Martinez and Julien Alvarez, two players who have been vying for the same spot in the team, but coming together and working together to Argentina's success. What did you make of it, Albani?

3:35Barney Ronay:Well, yeah, it was an incredible game. I mean, it was just another game of the tournament, wasn't it? I mean, I don't like the refereeing stuff. The refereeing wasn't, I mean, it wasn't great um i i just don't like accusations of bias and fixing because um i don't think that that is what's happening even though i can see what the motivation would be for that to happen and there have been some kind of decisions for messi that have gone his way in this tournament um i mean conversely uh the the fact that the referee gave a decision against the host that they didn't like is one of the things that's being used to kind of slightly destroy the integrity of the World Cup.

4:20Barney Ronay:And I respect the fact that even in their incompetence, the referees are impartial. That is one of the sort of important things about this game. But it's impossible not to talk about Messi, isn't it? I love the way he just keeps giving. Like, I've been writing and thinking about Messi for 20 years now, and there's still more and more. It is extraordinary what he's doing. I realised something while I was watching this game that he looked unhappy he was having a stinker for a while and there's this thing I've been wanting to say about Messi that what's unfair about him is that he's never played a game of football which Lionel Messi hasn't played in, he doesn't know what that is that's his experience his entire career, Lionel Messi is always playing and every team he's in, Lionel Messi's in the team and it's a massive advantage but it also means that he really he he's why he likes football so much because messi is i feel like saying to him sometimes you know it's not always like this like you're not always playing and there are loads of games which are really boring and joyless because leonard messi is not involved i mean i'm sure he's probably watched some of them maybe he hasn't i can imagine he probably doesn't doesn't really notice but that is why he's such a he's his career has been so good because every game, and the thing about his genius is it's a generous genius.

5:43Barney Ronay:He makes the other players better. He sees space and angles and passes that other people don't see. I don't want to make a comparison. I mean, I don't know if people have ever compared Cristiano Ronaldo with Lionel Messi, but every game he's played, Cristiano Ronaldo is playing. That's a completely different experience. He doesn't know what football is like without Cristiano Ronaldo on the pitch, which is quite a weird idea. And certainly in the last few years has involved basically playing in teams where everybody's propping up. And no wonder he looks kind of stretched and slightly unhappy. It's a different kind of thing.

6:20Barney Ronay:He takes stuff out of the game. Whereas Messi's just having the time of his life. But for the first time today, I felt he was playing a game where Lionel Messi wasn't there. And he suddenly realised the football, I guess it isn't much fun. He looked really unhappy and he really wasn't enjoying it. And I think part of that celebration was Lionel Messi suddenly came on, probably with about an hour gone. And suddenly it was what he recognised and what he understood football to be, which is he's always playing. And so it's good and fun. And he looked incredibly relieved when he scored that goal. There was something different about his celebration, I thought.

6:57Barney Ronay:And obviously he was weeping at the end. maybe it was having a glimpse of the football that we all play where Lionel Messi is not involved and it could be really really hard and difficult and not brilliant on the controversies Baz so the manager Hossam Hassan of Egypt said he will not watch a single minute of the rest of the World Cup because of the injustice his team suffered Zico said the referee was not fair the tournament's been fixed and look we've had light touch refereeing all this tournament and then suddenly the VAR decision the frustration is two-pronged, right? They have that goal disallowed for a foul but a long time before they score and then the winner Salah is kind of kicked he loses the ball, regains it he's kind of kicked.

7:44Dale Johnson's saying because it's in the box, there's a higher threshold for VAR so it's probably right but you can totally see the sense of injustice I don't think there's a foul in the lead up to the winner but I don't think the goal should be disallowed the second one either, personally

8:02Max Rushden:Well I think if you disallow one you have to disallow both because the fouls are pretty similar, I think there was two fouls in the build up to the winner, one on Fatih one on Mo Salah, I saw what Dale Johnson said about there being a higher threshold in the penalty area and while he is the guru of VAR as far as I'm concerned anytime I'm not sure what to think I scuttle off to Dale's social media page so he can have my opinion for me and I don't understand why the threshold is higher in the penalty area than anywhere else on the pitch it's either a foul or it isn't so I think the foul on Salah should have been a penalty for Egypt.

8:54Max Rushden:I think if you're going to disallow one, you have to disallow both. And I think the fact that not a single Argentina player was booked in this game is unbelievable. This is unbelievable. Romero. Absolutely unbelievable. Tagliafico and Romero could both have been sent off for two yellows each. And there were other slides. But like Barney, I don't think the ref is bent. I just think he didn't have a very good game. Refs have clearly been told to let a lot slide. But some teams are dirtier than others. So that benefits dirtier teams. And if you let things slide, you need to let that slide, even if a goal for the Egypt won, you have to let that slide too, just because a goal scored 30 seconds later.

9:43Max Rushden:And I mean, that goal, that Egypt goal that was disallowed was brilliant. and the three players who were involved teamed up to do it again a couple of minutes later. It was almost as in an FU to the officials and to FIFA. But yeah, I just think it was a bad referee in performance. I don't think he was, you know, deliberately favouring Argentina. And then when this happens, people go back and say, hang on, Argentina scored a goal against Austria where an Austrian was fouled. Messi had that red against Algeria that no one saw. Our friend Asasu, obviously is looking for excellence from the African teams, Archie, said, well, the referee messed up this game.

10:23Egypt's game management in the last 15 to 20 minutes. And then he did angry red face emoji, shrug emoji, hand on face emoji, crying emoji. And I mean, that is a point. They were 2-0 up with 15 minutes left. They were, but they had been shelling chances throughout. It wasn't so much a change of approach, I think. Egypt had one touch in the Argentinian box during the first half and they scored from it. They were more successful in countering in the second half and Omar Momouch will wonder what would have happened had he been able to loop it over Leandro Paredes, but he wasn't able to do that. And if you're not getting out against this Argentinian team enough, then you will be punished.

11:04If you're Argentina, I'm left in the same place where I was thinking about them in the last tournament, which is, oh, they've got problems and then they always find a way. And maybe one worrying element for them is that there were warning signs for each goal that it was coming. Egypt did a very similar set-piece routine before Yasser Ibrahim headed in in the first half. And that counter-attack that we saw were excellent run as well to help set up Zico. It was there to be seen, but Argentina were willing to take that risk. and this is the thing about them when you have Lionel Messi and just to add to what Barney's saying earlier there's something about the way that as much as football seems to have changed a lot around him he's still able to do the same thing and despite the fact that the intensity of the game the physicality of it seems to have changed Lionel Messi has been able to evolve without or not even evolve he's just stayed the same and the universe moves around him it's it is amazing even even today how he just went up another gear and found it yeah he had that little run to set up i think it was lautaro and that was it he'd kind of sparked on although opta saying that leon messi has missed half of his eight penalty attempts at world cups um the first player in the competition's history to miss two penalties in a single world cup they're both excluding shootouts and producer joel made a good point barney it makes no footballing sense that he's bad at penalties he's good at everything we've established this how can he be

12:41Barney Ronay:not good at this bit well it makes some footballing sense in the his his sort of genius what he's amazing at is um understanding all the space he he always knows what's going to happen and he'll make passes that just blow your mind there are always so many options he's got this kind of um compound eye i always imagine him having like a fly eye yeah like you can just see everything so slowly you can try to swat him but he's already gone you're chasing around the room with a fly but you're not going to get anywhere i mean you know what i mean so what's a penalty it's um that's when everyone has that everyone can see what's going to happen everyone is essentially lone or messy the game has stopped it's actually a totally different experience to what he is exceptional which is just managing time and space better than everyone else and maybe in that moment his brain goes into overdrive maybe it's too he's that messy squared he can see so many possibilities it's it's too much maybe he becomes mortal in that moment maybe he can't see the possibilities because it's so linear it's one kick so hang on have his eyes still a fly's eye when he's taking a penalty or they're back to a normal maybe he has got to fly maybe he becomes a normal eye and all he's got to do is kick the ball towards the goal and that's not his normal experience he's like this thing the planets move around him and he can see every possibility like a chess grandmaster but yeah something about the penalty spooks that process clearly maybe it's too easy maybe he needs to be energized by all those variables around him and being able to do that math so quickly that's my explanation now i understand he's kind of the sun and also a fly in the analogy yes yes it makes a lot of sense yeah of the sun with compound eyes um can argentina keep doing this Barry you think the Cape Verde game you think this one well they're doing it

14:31Max Rushden:in a similar fashion to England aren't they they just keep doing enough yeah to get where they need to be but you feel that Argent and if they keep doing enough to get where they need to be and England keep doing enough to get where they need to be they're going to meet and something's going to have to give one of them won't get to where they want to be and need to be because the other will have done just enough. But yeah, why can't they keep doing it? I mean, they showed remarkable character. I thought they were dead and buried with whatever it was, 12 minutes of normal time remaining, 2-0 down.

15:10Max Rushden:And I thought they were dead and buried. Then when they got one goal back, I thought, hmm, yeah, they're probably going to get another one now. I didn't think they'd finish the job in normal time I thought they'd need extra time or it might go to penalties can I just speak for our listeners

15:27Barney Ronay:here please in in asking Barry about the idea of England doing just enough just enough to get by um which is I mean that is credit that's the most original description of what happened is at the Azteca stadium that I have heard so far I mean Mexico had lost twice in 89 games there never lost a world cup game there in 10 attempts ignores scored three goals hang on with for 40 minutes with 10 men to the extent that they were physically and emotionally totally drained and it's probably the most draining experience they've ever had in their entire careers but they managed to eliminate the hosts from their own world cup at the end of it by scoring three times at the azteca if that's just doing enough i can only imagine what like an everyday barry day must be i mean you must go to the well so many what kind of things are you doing with this is just doing enough because most days i just sort of do enough but on the other hand you could describe that as an incredibly draining heroic performance that took every single ounce of concentration and physical strength it was just enough they scraped through back to the wall it was a very

16:37Max Rushden:excellent performance but it was the bare you know it was they did just it was the bare minimum No, it wasn't the bare minimum.

16:45Barney Ronay:It didn't feel like someone doing just enough for the bare minimum, I have to say. I thought it was...

16:50Max Rushden:Well, they won 3-2, so that was just enough to get through.

16:56Barney Ronay:I don't think in their minds they felt they were just doing enough to get through. Can I bring in Kofi Annan here, Archie? The way that England have played in this tournament so far, it's not like they've been blowing any teams away. Am I right or wrong? Yeah. Yeah. They really blew Mexico away. It was an amazing win. I think you just have to accept that. Both can be true because they did just enough, but just enough was amazing. Just on Egypt, their manager Hossam Hassan has been speaking about the plight of the Palestinian people. Yesterday, he said anyone who does not feel for Palestinians is not human.

17:27He asked FIFA to use its soft power to help Palestinians. Al Jazeera, amongst others, have reported that the Egyptian Relief Committee in Gaza has been organising public screenings of World Cup matches for displaced families across the Strip. And about an hour before the Egypt-Argentina match, Israel killed the committee's public relations director, Mohamed Fawaz al-Wahidi, in a strike on his vehicle. Two others, including a child, were also killed, which is just really fucking depressing, isn't it? And that'll do for part one. Part two, we will do Switzerland-Colombia.

18:05Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly. so Switzerland nil Columbia nil Switzerland winning 4-3 on penalties there was a moment when they cut to these two Swiss fans sort of crying this man and woman who had like you know Swiss flags paint on their face that really got me I don't know I'm just sort of tired and emotional but it wasn't a classic but Barry you somehow have three pages of notes on this game so away away you go page three is just the penalty

18:29Max Rushden:shoe shout graph so technically it's two I mean it was a very good game Switzerland did just enough to get through to the next round. It was an awful game. With some controversial decisions, both sides had penalty shouts turned down. There was lots of huffing and puffing by both teams to no great effect. Very little in the way of cutting edge in the final third for either side. I think the XG after 80 minutes was flashed up. was Switzerland 0.28, Colombia 0.39, which sort of tells you all you need to know. But then when it went to extra time, and I firmly, I'm a big advocate of getting rid of extra time.

19:21Max Rushden:I just think if games are level at 90 minutes, just go straight to penalties. But extra time here was actually quite good. Colombia had, I would say, four, maybe five good chances. Switzerland two. Still no one could score. and then Switzerland crept through on penalties. Yeah. A shout for Gregor Cobel, who made one brilliant save in that shootout. And Switzerland generally, because this is the first time in 72 years that they've reached the quarterfinals of a World Cup and they came into this as underdogs, I think as well. Even more so when you think that their player of the tournament so far, Johan Manzambi, had a knee injury and was out.

19:58And you could see that in the first half, how Switzerland was struggling to break through Colombia's defence, which has been so good since the opening game. In fact, they leave this tournament having only conceded one goal, which was to Uzbekistan in that. The problem was for Colombia that going forward, Luis Diaz didn't show up since that opening game. Not just on him, of course. There were other chances that they missed. Kampas with that huge chance after Granit Xhaka's failed clearance thing. I think we can label it. Gregor Kobel is not renowned, Max, as a great penalty saver. and he's had to wait a long time behind Jan Sommer in goal.

20:35But Jan Sommer had his moment against France in the Euros when they famously beat them. And this is a famous moment for Switzerland as well. Big moment too for coach Murat Yakin who came in for criticism at the start of the tournament for picking Denis Zakaria at right back. And today against Luis Diaz, he shut him down excellently. So well done to Switzerland. The most relieved man of them all, Manuel Akanji. because having missed in a penalty shootout against England last time in the Euros, he blazed? I don't know. And he did a... Normally, if you stutter, you don't get it that high. That's all you know.

21:11It's impressive. Yeah, it was a real scoop, wasn't it? It was a real sandwich. Davidson Sanchez hitting the bar as well. He was really unlucky because it was so close to Yeboah-ing in off the bar, wasn't it? I think he'd missed one before in Copa America as well. Lots of talk about you can't have centre-backs taking penalties. It doesn't matter if they score, but it does matter if they miss. Do you have any strong thoughts? on this game Barney it's quite hard to have strong thoughts on it well yeah I mean but it's something

21:37Barney Ronay:about the World Cup that you can still be totally gripped by an occasion where Switzerland win a nil-nil in Canada like there are three things in that sentence that sound on the face of it kind of like you might not be that interested in watching them on TV um but it was completely gripping um and i quite like an epic nil nil where when it really matters and um we kind of earned the drama of of the shootout uh it was a nice counterpoint to the the madness elsewhere i guess yeah okay so we've got quarterfinals france morocco spain belgium on one side of the draw norway england argentina switzerland on the other uh archie what do you make of them France-Morocco a replay of the semi-final or one of the semi-finals last time in 2022 whether Ismail Saibari will be fit for Morocco I think we'll have a big bearing on that game.

22:34Interested to see if Belgium can now step up and provide a second consecutive good performance in this tournament which they're yet to do so far and obviously pretty nervous about England Norway. I won't be in the bedroom in the apartment which is a big blow to my superstition. Argentina, Switzerland. To add, you have to remember that in 2014, Switzerland were heartbroken by Angel de Maria, losing in the 118th minute there. That was Granit Xhaka's first World Cup. Can he make a difference in this one? Manzambi needs to be back, I think. But I think there's a lot to get into with them. It's just, yeah, you would expect it to be France, Spain, and Norway, Argentina.

23:20Okay, that's it. Barney, look, you were at the Azteca and it was amazing. And they now play Norway, which will have is a different challenge.

23:31Barney Ronay:I think England and Norway games have generally been really quite good. I think of them as quite epic occasions. Well, the first England game I ever went to was a goalless draw at Wembley between England and Norway. It's possibly the worst football match that ever happened but that aside was that must have been mid-90s okay i mean i'm thinking of graham taylor uh that those occasions were really sort of formative in in a certain kind of period in england's time um i think it's a brilliant game i'm really looking forward to i'm here in miami already it's going to be really hot the stadium is open air and it's incredibly humid and hot it's going to be uh low 30s so 33 degrees but feel really really heavy so it might be an episodic game it'll be one where there are lots of pale northern europeans sweating a lot uh and it'll be interesting to see if john stone starts um he came back at the end of that game actually looked fine and we've seen the too cool video joshing about having a shoulder injury um but him against erling harlem would be quite interesting it's the kind of match-up that you might actually want if you're Tuchel.

24:40Barney Ronay:But Norway are a really good team. They're not just Erling Haaland. And I really think it could go either way. It's going to be close. It's going to be really interesting. It's interesting about these quarterfinals. They are six European teams. And plus Morocco, where so much of their squad of players who came through the Ajax Academy or through the French kind of machine, is very Europe-heavy. It's a bit of a shame that there aren't really any wildcards in there. I suppose you'd say Norway were kind of one of those but um yeah i mean shakira said that we're all african once um maybe maybe we're all european now did she also say waka waka yeah yeah so and her hips don't lie she said that and her hips don't my hips don't lie but in a very different way and i have complained about them for a month i know uh anyway we have live shows uh on the 1st of september and the 9th of september we're in dublin at vicar street on the first uh soho theater in walthamstow on the 9th.

25:38Tickets selling well. Go to theguardian.com slash footballweeklylive. Come along, please. Part 3, we'll speak to Alex Abnos, our US soccer editor, on that defeat yesterday to Belgium.