Messi Missed a Penalty Then Saved Argentina. Scaloni Was in Tears.

Argentina has a habit of making things impossibly hard on itself. Tuesday was just the latest example. Down 2-0 to Egypt with less than 15 minutes left in the World Cup knockout round, the defending champions needed something close to a miracle. They got one.

Lionel Messi missed a penalty in the first half. It wasn’t his night — or so it seemed. Then he buried the equalizer in the 78th minute, and Lautaro Martinez finished the comeback in stoppage time. Argentina won 3-2. Coach Lionel Scaloni was crying on the sideline and then kept crying in the locker room.

“The boys call me ‘the crybaby,’” Scaloni said after the match. “I don’t care.”

Scaloni never panicked

Most coaches would be losing it down 2-0 with the clock running out. Scaloni says he wasn’t. “Against Cape Verde it was worse,” he said, referring to Argentina’s extra-time win in the previous round. “Today, even when it was 0-2, the feeling was that at some point we would get a chance and could turn it around.”

He insisted the team wasn’t playing badly. They had chances. They just hadn’t finished them. And Messi’s missed penalty in the first half could have buried the team’s confidence. Instead, Scaloni said the veteran forward thrives in those moments. “I’m convinced that he plays soccer for moments like this. For him to feel these emotions at this stage of his career is hard to explain.”

The coach called the comeback “unforgettable” and said whatever happens from here, this group never stops believing — even when everything is going against it.

How Argentina keeps pulling off these escapes

This wasn’t the first time in this tournament alone. Argentina needed a 115th-minute winner from Cristian Romero to beat Cape Verde in the round of 16. Against Egypt, they waited even longer. It’s not sustainable, but somehow they keep finding a way.

Part of it is Scaloni’s calm. Part of it is Messi still doing Messi things at 39 years old. But there’s something else — a stubborn refusal to accept the game is over. Scaloni got emotional talking about it. “For all of us who played football for 20 years, to feel what we felt today again is incredible.”

Most coaches who played the game, he said, become coaches because of days like this. Because of the adrenaline and the emotion. And then he went back to the locker room to cry some more.