Roy Keane screamed himself hoarse. Gary Neville went straight after one of Manchester United’s own. And Lionel Messi, after missing a penalty that could have ended it all, flipped a switch and dragged Argentina back from the dead.
The defending World Cup champions somehow escaped the round of 16 with a 3-2 win over Egypt on Monday night, pulling off a 13-minute flurry of goals in Atlanta that left everyone in the building — and everyone watching on TV — trying to remember if they’d ever seen anything quite like it.
For about 75 minutes, this looked like the biggest upset of the tournament. Egypt went up 1-0 when Yasser Ibrahim out-jumped Lisandro Martinez to power a header home. Then, in the 67th minute, Mostafa Zico finished off a devastating counter-attack to make it 2-0. Argentina was staring down elimination, and Messi had already sent a penalty well wide of the goal in the first half.
Then the whole thing flipped. Cristian Romero pulled one back. Messi scored. Enzo Fernandez scored. Just like that, Argentina was through, and the Egyptian players were on the ground, arguing with officials about a disallowed goal from earlier that had been called back for a foul near their own touchline.
Keane, working the broadcast for ITV, didn’t hold back. “My voice is gone,” he said. “I loved it. Yesterday we saw sad tears from Ronaldo. Today we see happy tears from Messi. They will not give up. The quality of their goals was amazing. Wow. This is why we love the game.”
Former England goalkeeper Paul Robinson was just as stunned. “That was incredible. Spectacular,” he told BBC Sport. “Argentina were down and out, they were out of the tournament at one point.” He pointed to the officiating frustrations Egypt had to deal with, then noted that once Messi “stepped in and took over,” the comeback was on.
Neville wasn’t impressed with Martinez
While Keane was losing his voice celebrating the chaos, Neville was in the ITV studio breaking down Egypt’s opening goal. He zeroed in on Martinez, the United center-back who’d gotten beaten in the air by Ibrahim.
“I’m surprised because he’s usually the best actually,” Neville said. “Because of his size, he’s very aware of being body to body and touch tight. A great delivery is put into the back post, but you just watch him here… he is close, he’s sort of wrestling with Ibrahim and then all of a sudden he just steps off him.”
Neville thought Martinez might have been thinking about stepping up for offside with the rest of the back line. But he broke off his man for just a split second, and that was enough. “He just switches off,” Neville said. “Maybe he thinks they’re going to push up, but it’s a great delivery, a great header.”
Argentina moves on to face the winner of Switzerland-Colombia in the quarterfinals. If England beats Norway on Saturday, there could be a meeting between the two in the semifinals. But for now, the story is all about how Messi and his team refused to let this tournament slip away.
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