Offside: Lionel Messi and Argentina pull off another miraculous comeback to bury Egypt | Football News
Hello and welcome to another edition of OFFSIDE. This is also a memorable day for all World Cup fans Lionel Messi Argentina comes back from two goals down Mohamed SalahWorld Cup dream. Meanwhile, Switzerland beat Colombia in a penalty shootout to set up a showdown with Messi’s Argentina.There’s an almost biblical feel to the whole situation. Trailing by two goals with 11 minutes of regular time remaining, the World Cup dreams of Messi and his teammates seemed to be dashed and buried. Like the Israelites in the Hebrew Bible, they fell into the proverbial predicament: Pharaoh’s followers hunted them down, and elimination was imminent. In the biblical version, Moses parted the Red Sea. In the football world, Messi once again performed miracles and eliminated the Pharaohs from the World Cup.The difference between good players and great players is that in critical moments, they elevate their game. Thierry Henry, Messi’s former teammate at Barcelona, pointed this out during a Fox broadcast: “You don’t (want) to wake up the beast. You look into his eyes and he switches… When his team needs him, he raises his game. He starts dribbling and dribbling past almost everyone to try to change the game.”He did just that, seizing the opportunity of the game, first setting up Cristian Romero’s equalizer with a cross, and then knocking the ball home from the underside of the crossbar to make it 2-2. At that moment it almost felt like the proverbial sea was about to part, and that’s exactly what happened when Enzo Fernandez produced a brilliant counterattack in injury time.
Messi shed tears after the game, as did his counterpart Ronaldo, although they were tears of joy and release rather than tears of regret. Messi was furious about his penalty miss, and frankly, given his Shaq-like penalty record, he really should have put the blame on someone else.He said after the game: “I felt like I let the team down at an important moment. But luckily, fate gave me something special in the end…”Of course, like everything at this World Cup, the whole row has turned political.Egypt head coach Hossam Hassan said in his post-match press conference that he would never watch a World Cup again because there was no justice and no respect for fair play in the game, pointing to the goal that was canceled by VAR and the penalty that was denied. He turned to philosophy, stating that life is unfair but sport should be fair, and he quoted someone who had recently had his red card revoked as saying that he was not convinced by the results.Those who are more progressive believe Argentina is favored by FIFA for a variety of reasons. Some claimed it was an attempt to promote the “pro-Zionist” Messi. Others pointed out the lack of melanin diversity on the team because apparently now all nations have to cosplay like in a Disney movie. Others pointed to Argentina’s red carpet welcome to the former Nazi. Some even claimed that Egypt was being punished for being “pro-Palestinian.” Of course, one might point out that “pro-Palestinian” Egypt’s Rafah border with Palestine is heavily guarded to prevent any Palestinians from venturing in, as was the case with goalkeeper Mostafa Shobel’s rock-solid performance in the first half.
Swiss fans cheer during a public viewing of the match between Switzerland and Colombia during the round of 16 match of the 2026 FIFA World Cup in Zurich, Switzerland, Tuesday, July 7, 2026. (Claudio Thoma/Keystone, Associated Press)
In fact, it’s quite interesting how the world has crammed vulgar political epithets onto Messi’s shelf, including political outcomes across the globe, including in India, where West Bengal has seen a political reversal amid the uproar over Messi’s disastrous visit. This causal relationship is as real as the global pirate population being inversely proportional to global warming.Regardless, in the real world, Messi faces in his next game the most neutral of political opponents, the ones who didn’t even pick a side as war tore the continent apart: Switzerland.While Argentina is busy turning Exodus into stoppage time football, Switzerland and Colombia are playing a very different kind of knockout game: one for those who think football should occasionally be audited by chartered accountants. The game ended 0-0 after 120 minutes, which meant that both teams spent two hours doing everything but the one thing for which the sport is named. Colombia had already sent Ghana home in the previous round, but they found themselves stuck in a vault in Switzerland, where the talent went to file paperwork and never returned.Then came the punishment, and Switzerland did what Switzerland often does: keep calm while others discover the emotional limits of the human nervous system. Switzerland won 4-3 on penalties, Colombia’s World Cup dreams ended at the 12-yard mark, and the World Cup reached the quarter-finals that geopolitical satirists have been silently praying for: Argentina vs. Switzerland.
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