For 20 years, the world’s best defenders have tried to stop Lionel Messi and mostly failed. And now England finally gets its shot — at the 2026 World Cup, of all places.
Here’s the thing that makes this matchup so tricky for England: Messi doesn’t care about the hype. He never has. In the Amazon documentary about Diego Simeone, there’s a scene where everyone is talking about the emotion of England vs. Argentina, the history, the fire. Then Messi appears on screen and says all he remembers from the 1998 World Cup is going outside to kick a ball after the game. That’s it. No speeches. No drama. Just a kid who wanted to play.
People close to him say he treats a Wednesday night game in Cincinnati the same way he treats Brazil. It’s all just football. The only exception is the World Cup itself — because he knows every game could be his last in the tournament. But that doesn’t make him emotional. It makes him focused.
The way Messi sees the game
Defenders talk about it like it’s supernatural. They say it’s like he’s seen the Matrix. Early in games, he’ll wander around, barely touching the ball, looking almost disinterested. That’s not laziness. He’s mapping the entire defensive structure — where the gaps are, which defender is nervous, which side opens up under pressure. He internalizes all of it in real time, then waits for the right moment to strike.
That Egypt game in the round of 16 was a perfect example. For 73 minutes, Messi was terrible. Missed a penalty. Looked half asleep. Then he drifted left, picked up the ball, and suddenly looked 23 again. He set up one goal, scored another, and Argentina was through.
Thomas Tuchel, who knows a thing or two about game planning, understands that those long quiet stretches from Messi aren’t a weakness. They’re the setup.
How do you stop someone like that?
Jose Mourinho once said you don’t try to stop Messi. You try to give him a difficult match. That’s the best you can hope for. And even then, it doesn’t always work.
Ashley Cole is one of the few defenders who could honestly say Messi never scored against him in club games. Cole is proud of that, and he should be. Most guys who faced Messi just end up saying it was a privilege to get embarrassed by him.
England’s defenders this time around — Nico O’Reilly and Jordan Pickford — are saying the same thing. O’Reilly called it a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Pickford said it’s great to finally face him after watching him as a kid. That’s the right attitude. But attitude alone won’t stop a player who’s spent 20 years computing every angle of the game faster than anyone else.
The one weakness that might matter
Messi is 39 now. He’s not the same player who destroyed Jerome Boateng in 2015. But his mind is sharper than ever. The only real crack in his armor right now is penalties. He’s missed four of his eight World Cup spot kicks. That’s a 50-50 proposition for a guy who’s almost perfect at everything else.
If this game goes to a shootout — and there’s a real chance it does — that stat could matter. But Lionel Scaloni isn’t going to tell Messi to step aside. “Let him do whatever he wants out on the pitch,” Scaloni said.
By the end of the game, Messi usually knows what to do better than anyone else. England is about to find out what that feels like firsthand.
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