Messi faces England at last as an old World Cup rivalry returns in the semis
Wednesday’s semi-final in Atlanta pits Thomas Tuchel’s England against Lionel Messi’s Argentina, reviving a fixture last played in 2005 and one Messi has somehow never featured in.
Jul 12, 2026
Some semi-finals need a build-up. This one arrives with about forty years of it already loaded. Julián Álvarez’s late strike against Switzerland confirmed the tie most neutrals were quietly hoping for: England against Argentina, at Atlanta Stadium on Wednesday, July 15, with a place in the World Cup final at stake. For fans in India that means a 12:30 am IST kick-off in the early hours of Thursday, and it is worth setting an alarm for.
The two countries have not met on a football pitch since a friendly in 2005. Everything before that belongs to World Cup mythology, which is exactly why this feels less like a fixture and more like an event.
A rivalry with a long memory
England and Argentina at a World Cup carries baggage no other pairing quite matches. In 1986 it was Diego Maradona, first punching the ball past Peter Shilton for the Hand of God and then dribbling through half the England team for a goal still replayed on a loop, knocking the Three Lions out in the quarter-finals. In 1998 David Beckham was sent off in a second-round tie that Argentina won on penalties, and he wore that as a national villain for four years until his penalty beat them in the 2002 group stage. Then the two simply stopped meeting. A whole generation has grown up on these stories without a new one to add.
Messi’s first look at England
The face of it this time is Lionel Messi. At 39, in what is almost certainly his final World Cup, he has been the tournament’s defining figure, dragging Argentina to the last four and sitting right at the sharp end of the Golden Boot race. What makes Wednesday stranger still is that he has never once faced England in a competitive match. One of the sport’s great rivalries and its most decorated player have somehow never crossed paths, and they are doing it now with a final on the line. A scriptwriter would be told to tone it down.
England will have studied his quarter-final hard. Messi’s decisive quality in the final third is undimmed, but he does far less chasing than he used to, and clever opponents have begun to press into the gaps he leaves behind him. Whether Thomas Tuchel asks his side to attack that space or simply to crowd Messi out when Argentina have the ball could decide how the night goes.
England’s own case
They do not arrive as passengers to Argentina’s story. A Jude Bellingham brace saw England past Norway 2-1 after extra time, the kind of single-handed rescue that tends to mark out teams who go deep. Harry Kane leads the line, Bellingham runs the midfield, and after a long run of semi-final near-misses this group carries itself like a side that thinks the final step is finally reachable. They will not be scared of Argentina. They should, though, respect what one Messi moment can do to a tight game.
Semi-finals usually turn on fine margins, and the margin here may be simple: can England get through 90 or 120 minutes without handing Messi the single opening he needs. Manage that and a first World Cup final since 1966 is right in front of them. Give him a yard, and this old rivalry could write its most painful England chapter yet.