As Julian Alvarez sent the ball swerving into the Swiss top corner, for arguably the goal of the World Cup so far, it was almost too perfect. Not just the quality of the strike, but what it means.
Up in Fifa’s VVIP box, far above the customarily ecstatic Argentine celebrations, Conmebol president and Gianni Infantino confidante Alejandro Dominguez was celebrating almost as wildly. It was quite the reaction for a Paraguayan, who grabbed Argentine football chief Claudio Tapia as if he was from the country himself.
That’s perhaps understandable given that it was a goal to get you off your feet as well as badly-needed South American representation in the semi-finals, but all of Fifa must have been jumping for joy.
The goal set up exactly the semi-finals many would have idealised, and that in the home of entertainment.
Most fans will of course have felt the same. How couldn’t you?
After a World Cup that had been surprisingly light on heavyweight clashes given its size – arguably only featuring Spain-Portugal – it now has two “super-clasicos” and a guaranteed blockbuster of a final.
Fifa’s own publicity has already made much of how it is the first time a semi-final has featured the four top-ranked teams in a World Cup, but it’s also the first time the last four have featured four previous winners since 1990.
That parallel with the most beloved of World Cups, in Italy, also fits with how this is probably the most alluring quartet in all that time, and are potentially the best ever depending on how the games actually go.
Just go through them in the meantime. The 2014 semis were probably closest, but Argentina-Netherlands ended up a 0-0; 2006 had the quality but was completely European, and in a more dour era.
Now, there is so much infusing these ties, from the quality and the contrasts to the stars and the storylines.
Even before Saturday escalated everything, France-Spain was already being held up as the “real final”, from which the eventual champions will come.
It doesn’t always work like that in reality but, from being responsible for the best scoring record and best defensive record, respectively, these two sides have looked by far the two best teams in the World Cup so far.
That is only made more exciting because of how such qualities could be cast as a battle for football’s future. Whereas Spain have perfected the Pep Guardiola positional game in a manner no other international team can, to look the most complete collective, Didier Deschamps has surprisingly pursued the evolving tactical school of “relationism” – very broadly, a return to more individual interpretation.
It’s an orchestra against free jazz, and that’s before you even get into the history between two neighbours, as well as that between the teams. Adrien Rabiot’s quotes about Lamine Yamal before the Euro 2024 semi-final – and how he needed to “do more” – have already resurfaced.
And yet even all of that, and a proper European derby, pale next to what Argentina-England is.
The notional real final has already been overshadowed by a real epic. It adds to the resonance that this meeting comes 40 years after the most famous World Cup match of all, that 1986 quarter-final, as the spirits from the Azteca continue to swirl.
This is also the first meeting between the two countries at all since 2005, and the first in a World Cup since 2002.
There is consequently a lot of pent-up emotion, that can be sensed in how so many Argentina chants – including the “Muchachos” song that soundtracked the last World Cup – mention “Las Malvinas”.
For one of the countries, at least, it is more than a football match. For the other, it is a football match that potentially means more than any other in 60 years – a chance to finally get back into the World Cup final.
If Spain and France are seeking to properly crown their talent, and Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappe are seeking to elevate their historic legacies, there’s also the drama of the long drought. England’s wait for another trophy is the longest for any previous World Cup winner.
Such a wait for this fixture meanwhile remarkably makes this Messi’s first ever match against England, with such an individual landmark fitting how this is a fixture more about the stars.
Neither England nor Argentina have reached anywhere near the levels of Spain or France as teams, after all. Their dysfunction instead makes them much more dependent on their best players.
Rather than the stars finishing for them in a manner that is a natural product of their performances, the two sides have frequently had to be saved by superheroes.
And yet that might actually make it the more chaotic, entertaining and dramatic game, entirely in-keeping with most of the World Cup so far. It does look like one where almost anything could happen: an overdue hammering on either side, or a match that goes the distance to penalties.
Fifa will be pleased either way.
As well as the best teams, the Messi landmark emphasises how all of this World Cup’s top scorers and top performers – outside Erling Haaland – are still here at this most exacting stage.
There’s Messi, Mbappe, Michael Olise, Ousmane Dembele, Jude Bellingham, Harry Kane and now Alvarez, while we’re all still waiting for Yamal’s big moment – something he is conscious of.
It is mouthwatering, with the bonus of how any of the possible final pairings would be just as enticing.
And that’s before we’ve even had the games. If these heavyweight fixtures follow the trends of the World Cup so far, we could genuinely be talking about the greatest semi-finals ever. That is really what marks a tournament apart, after all; how it concludes. That’s what really stays in the memory. Even the entertainment of USA 94 dwindled amid the heat. This looks like it could yet go higher.
Fifa really couldn’t have had it better… except for how this very quartet only appears to fuel more of the online suspicion about how certain borderline decisions have fallen.
The Independent should stress that it believes the ideas of conspiracy or decisions “conditioning” favourable outcomes are absurd, but the problem the governing body have got is how the Donald Trump episode changed perceptions.
It’s been a bad week for Fifa in that sense, amid a great and growing tournament.
That makes it all the more timely for Infantino to toss out the distraction of suggesting 64 teams.
And yet, this tournament’s own expansion shows all of that is mere table-setting.
There’s nothing like the stakes that actually matter, pure knock-out as you get closer and closer to the peak.
There may be nothing like these semi-finals.
