​Even in the moments after England-Argentina was confirmed, there was fittingly a tension, that arose from different perspectives.It was almost comic. Argentina manager Lionel Scaloni immediately insisted “this is a football game and that is all”, at pretty much the same moment all of his players were singing in the dressing room about winning “for Las Malvinas”.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementIt was the same with the “Muchachos” song that soundtracked the 2022 World Cup. There’s immediate mention of “the kids of Malvinas, that we’ll never forget”.“You can feel it,” Javier Zanetti said when speaking in Diego Simeone’s documentary about the 1998 last-16 tie between the teams, Simeone himself adding that England-Argentina is “not related to football, but there’s something different about it.”This is a true World Cup epic, and there are only a handful of fixtures that compare. Maybe Brazil-Italy, for the colour and football history, if not real history. Brazil-Argentina, but that happens all the time. In that sense, not even England-Germany feels the same, since that can also happen in the Euros.It’s impossible not to be excited about Wednesday in Atlanta in a purely football sense, even if that’s because the football is invigorated by so much else.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementSimilarly, if the real history fired the initial meetings, the matches themselves created a history of their own.The 1986 quarter-final at the Azteca is perhaps the centre-piece of World Cup lore, its most famous match.The shadow of Diego Maradona’s ‘Hand of God’ looms over England v Argentina (Bob Thomas/Getty)Diego Huerta, a football executive who oversaw Racing’s 2019 Argentine title win, describes that match as “the most important of my life – more than the World Cup finals”.“If Diego Maradona scored those goals against Belgium, it wouldn’t be the same.”And in the same way that Maradona’s legacy runs through this game, so many other echoes of the past surround it.England have already played at the Azteca in this run, returning memories to the fore. Jude Bellingham twice scored in that same end.England defeated Mexico 3-2 win at the Azteca Stadium – the venue for their iconic clash with Argentina in 1986 (PA Wire)Jude Bellingham scored twice at the Azteca Stadium emulating Maradona (AP)On Saturday, before both sides confirmed semi-final places, Antonio Rattin died. He’d been the central figure of the 1966 quarter-final, that provoked Sir Alf Ramsey to call the Argentina side “animals”.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementBy that same evening, Simeone and David Beckham – the dramatis personae of 1998 – were embracing for a photo. Other emotions haven’t subsided like that, but instead got stronger.Mentions of the 1982 Falklands War feel more frequent than in 1998, even if that is partly propelled by social media and increasing nationalist inclinations, amid a worldwide rightward turn ref