England can banish Argentina demons as historic World Cup rivalry reignited | OneFootball

England take on Argentina for first time in 21 years in World Cup semi-final

One of international football’s great rivalries, dormant for two decades, is ready to be jumpstarted back to life in Atlanta, Georgia today.

The prospect of England facing the defending champions Argentina for a place in the World Cup final sends a tingle down the spines, draws a slight sweat to the fingertips, and stirs the soul.

So little can be said with any level of certainty about what will happen in a truly unpredictable semi-final between two well-matched teams who have shown heroic powers of recovery and a seemingly unbreakable will to win — until now. One team will be out of this competition in just a few hours’ time.

The similarities extend further for two countries who have not lit up this World Cup but whose world-class match-winners have. Lionel Messi, Jude Bellingham and Harry Kane have had individual tournaments to remember. This semi-final could be a case of brightest star wins, and yet you get the impression it could be a little more complex than that.

Thomas Tuchel expects “a match with a lot of momentum swings — anything else would surprise me.” He is desperate for his team to put right the “technical errors” he believes they made in their quarter-final against Norway.

The masterplan: Thomas Tuchel

AFP/Getty

Spain await the winner in Sunday’s final, and yet this match should feel very much an occasion, an entity, in its own right. On the occasion of his 206th appearance for Argentina, Messi will face England for the very first time. England, in return, pit themselves against the greatest footballer of all time. It is a spectacle that hardly needs selling.

How well will England fare at stopping Messi?

Well, Morgan Rogers was asked a similar question about Erling Haaland before the quarter-final and replied: “I don’t think anyone has ever stopped Erling, have they?”

England did. They became the first team at this World Cup to keep the Manchester City striker at bay, and, while different players, they are similarly prolific scorers and potentially daunting opponents. That can only have given the Three Lions encouragement ahead of this first bow with Argentina’s little genius. England will be focused on limiting the supply lines to Messi. “Be brave, be brave around him, stop the support around him,” Tuchel said.

For plenty of Argentinians, this is more than a match. There are political undertones to the rivalry, which they feel more intensely than many England fans. Lionel Scaloni’s side are fuelled, in the words of his opposite number, by their “very emotional style”, and are clearly hellbent on making 39-year-old Messi a double world champion.

So much so that superstition has taken hold. Argentina would have been playing in their dark blue and black away kit anyway — because they are the allocated away team — and yet their football association still requested to FIFA that they wear it come what may. That is because it was in their away kit in 1986 when Diego Maradona’s brace dumped England out of the World Cup, and in their alternate colours again that they eliminated England from France in 1998 on penalties in the round of 16.

“I would have done the same,” Tuchel chuckled when informed of the fact yesterday. “I have my superstitious routines too. I will not tell you [what they are], because another superstition is that if I tell you it will not work.”

While England have the youth of Bellingham, Argentina have the experience of having won the last World Cup and a team littered with serial winners who have been knocking around at the upper echelons of the game for some time.

The team they fielded against Switzerland was the oldest seen in a World Cup quarter-final since Brazil’s against England at Chile 1962.

Argentina have gone to extra time or penalties in a record 13 games at World Cups, winning 11, including on Saturday in Kansas City, Missouri, and some of those victories were experienced by members of Scaloni’s coaching staff, which includes Pablo Aimar, Walter Samuel, Roberto Ayala, a who’s-who of Argentina’s greats.

Big hopes: Jude Bellingham, Harry Kane and Dan Burn

PA Wire

England, though, will not cower to the lofty reputation or esteemed history of their opponents; they should feel emboldened by knockout victories over DR Congo, Mexico (in Mexico City) and Haaland’s Norway, a greater level of opposition than the comeback kings have faced (Cape Verde, Egypt, the Swiss).

Ultimately, England and Tuchel know the opportunity that presents itself to his team, and he said this week: “I feel another change of mood in the group.” He meant this as a clear positive, as though his team have shed their skin and are now to get serious.

Though the performance against Norway was not to the perfectionist’s liking, life as a World Cup head coach patently is. “I feel very alive. I don’t want to be anywhere else in the whole wide world.”