OFFSIDE: Lionel Messi and Argentina staged another miraculous comeback to bury Egypt

Argentina’s Lionel Messi (10) celebrates after scoring his team’s second goal during the World Cup Round of 16 match between Argentina and Egypt in Atlanta, Tuesday, July 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart) Hello and welcome to another edition of OFFSIDE. A day to remember for all World Cup fans as Lionel Messi and Argentina came back from two goals down to bury Mohamed Salah’s World Cup dreams. Meanwhile, the Swiss beat Colombia in a penalty shoot-out to set up a clash with Messi’s Argentina.The whole state of affairs had an almost biblical air to it. With 11 minutes left in normal time and two goals down, the World Cup dream seemed dead and buried for Messi and co. Like the Israelites in the Hebrew Bible, they were proverbially imprisoned: Pharaoh’s men pursued them and eliminated them staring them in the face. In the biblical version, Moses parts the Red Sea. In football’s iteration, Messi once again pulled off a miracle and kicked the Pharaohs out of the World Cup.The difference between a good player and a great player is that they step up their game in clutch situations. Thierry Henry, Messi’s former teammate at Barcelona, ​​said this during his broadcast on FOX: “You don’t (want to) wake up the beast. You look in his eyes and he switches… when his team needs him, he lifts the game. He starts to take the ball and dribble around almost everyone to try to change the game.”And so he did, grabbing the game by the scruff of the neck, first assisting with a cross for Cristian Romero’s equaliser, then knocking one off the underside of the bar to make it 2-2. At that point it seemed almost inevitable that the proverbial sea would part, and it did so deep into injury time when Enzo Fernandez finished off a remarkable counter-attack.After the match, Messi, like his rival Ronaldo, was in tears, although they were tears of joy and relief rather than regret. Messi expressed anger at his own penalty miss and frankly, given his Shaq-like penalty record, he should really hand the duties over to someone else.After the match, he said: “I felt that I let the team down at an important moment. But luckily for me fate had something special at the end…”Of course, like all things at this World Cup, the whole farce turned political.Egypt head coach Hossam Hassan said in his post-match conference that he will never watch the World Cup again because there is no justice in this competition, that there is no respect for fair play, pointing to a goal disallowed by VAR and a penalty disallowed. He philosophized, pointing out that life is unfair, but there should be fairness in sport, and channeled a man who received a red card, recently overturned, saying he was not convinced by the result.Those of a more progressive persuasion believe that Argentina is favored by FIFA for various reasons. Some say it’s a promotion of a “pro-Zionist” Messi. Others point to the lack of melanin diversity on the team, since apparently all countries now have to cosplay like Disney movies. Others point to Argentina’s red carpet welcome of ex-Nazis. Some even claim that Egypt is being punished for being “pro-Palestinian”. Of course, it could be pointed out that Egypt’s “pro-Palestinian” Rafah border with Palestine is heavily fortified to prevent any Palestinians from entering, much like goalkeeper Mostafa Shobeir’s rock-solid performance in the first half.

Swiss fans cheer as they watch the 2026 FIFA World Cup round of 16 match between Switzerland and Colombia during a public viewing in Zurich, Switzerland, Tuesday, July 7, 2026. (Claudio Thoma/Keystone via AP)

It’s actually quite interesting how the world shoves crude political epithets on Messi’s shelf, including political outcomes around the world, including India, where the state of West Bengal saw a political upheaval over the hullabaloo of Messi’s disastrous visit. The causality is as real as the number of pirates worldwide is inversely proportional to global warming.Either way, in the real world, Messi faces the most neutral of political opponents in his next match, those who didn’t even choose a side when the continent was torn apart by war: Switzerland.While Argentina were busy turning the Book of Exodus into half-time football, Switzerland and Colombia were playing a very different kind of knockout game: a game for people who think football should be occasionally audited by chartered accountants. It ended 0-0 after 120 minutes, which is another way of saying both teams spent two hours doing everything but the one thing the sport is named after. Colombia, who already sent Ghana home in the previous round, found themselves trapped in a Swiss vault, where flair went to file papers and never came back.And then came the penalties, where Switzerland did what Switzerland so often does: stay calm while everyone else discovers the emotional limits of the human nervous system. The Swiss won 4-3 in a shootout, Colombia’s World Cup dream evaporated from 12 yards and the tournament got the quarter-final that geopolitical satirists had been silently praying for: Argentina against Switzerland.