​KANSAS CITY — Lionel Andres Messi stands two matches away from football immortality, two games from an undisputed, unassailable G.O.A.T. status, two games from erasing any doubt or challenge about who has been the best to ever play the sport. The same goes for Argentina, in every respect. Only two nations have ever won back-to-back World Cups, and the last time that occurred was 64 years ago: Italy in the 1930s and Brazil in 1958 and 1964. If Argentina could pull it off, they would be the greatest team of all time, forever. Those are the nearly impossible expectations they face—he faces—every time they step onto the pitch, just as they did Saturday night against Switzerland in the 2026 quarterfinal. When the whistle blew, they did what was required and earned another match, but Argentina currently enter their semifinal against England as the underdogs on Wednesday at 3 p.m. ET, the defending champions with the greatest player ever, still underdogs. Maybe they will prevail, maybe they won’t, but we will almost certainly never witness anyone come this close again in our lifetimes.
“May our fans enjoy the semifinal as much as we do,” Messi said after Argentina endured another scare and triumphed 3-1 in extra time. “This team has conditioned people to expect extraordinary things. We must savor it to the fullest, because we don’t know if it will happen again.” The words carry weight. Up to this point, it had largely been Messi carrying Argentina through matches that felt tighter than they should have been. Messi’s magic can make you believe that nothing is impossible for him, yet the eye test shows Argentina are not clearly the best team in this tournament; at no point in the knockout rounds have they looked head and shoulders above their opponents, and it’s fair to say they remain overly dependent on a 39-year-old who somehow has resisted the march of time. On paper, it’s hardly an inspiring recipe for confidence.
And yet you don’t bet against them. Do you want to be on the wrong side of history? Against that man, against this team? Not a chance. They just keep finding a way. Again and again and again now. But this time it was closer to Argentina dragging Messi across the finish line than Messi dragging Argentina across the line at his peak. Any shortfall from Messi—any hint of his usual best—might have left Argentina eliminated in one of the last two rounds against teams as capable as Cape Verde or Egypt. The question that hung over the tournament was whether anyone besides Messi would step up, and after five games, there was no clear answer. Perhaps Julián Álvarez and Lautaro Martínez, Messi’s running partners up front, heard the chatter. How could they not? And they answered.
Switzerland made it unmistakably clear from the opening whistle that they would not let Messi beat them. They crowded him with and without the ball, pushing him wider than he preferred. Murat Yakin’s side executed their game plan with near perfection, stifling the maestro and testing Argentina’s depth. Yet in the end, Argentina found a way to advance, even if the path was more arduous than many had anticipated. The semifinal awaits, a stage set for Messi to cement a legacy that already looms larger than life, while Argentina seeks to transform a team built around a single extraordinary talent into a championship machine that can sustain greatness beyond one man.