ATLANTA — Start with 28-3. Add in a healthy dose of the Knicks’ 29-point NBA Finals Game 4 comeback, add a dash of Kick Six for flavor, and you’ll have something like Tuesday’s Argentina-Egypt match, a miracle of will, resilience and opportunity. Only the fact that La Albiceleste beat the Pharaohs in the World Cup’s round of 16, rather than the finals, keeps it from claiming the **** le of greatest comeback in sports history outright.
Down 0-2, with just 12 minutes of regular time left, the defending champions looked doomed. But Argentina has itself a Messi, and when you’ve got a Messi on your roster, you’re always in the fight.
In the 79th minute, Messi curled in toward Egypt’s goal, then popped a chip right up for Cristian Romero to drive home. Just four minutes later, Messi threaded a laser through a thicket of limbs to equalize the match, setting up the inevitable winner in stoppage time. Expect anything different?
Messi doesn’t show much emotion in even the best moments, but on Tuesday, he wept openly on the pitch after the game, surely realizing how close he’d likely just come to the end of his World Cup career. His delirious teammates, meanwhile, decided it would be a good idea to toss him into the air:
“I told him on the pitch to enjoy it because he deserved it,” Lautaro Martinez said in Spanish after the match. “I told him we would keep giving everything, for ourselves, but above all for him, because this is his last World Cup and he has given us so much.”
Down 0-2, with just 12 minutes of regular time left, the defending champions looked doomed. But Argentina has itself a Messi, and when you’ve got a Messi on your roster, you’re always in the fight.
In the 79th minute, Messi curled in toward Egypt’s goal, then popped a chip right up for Cristian Romero to drive home. Just four minutes later, Messi threaded a laser through a thicket of limbs to equalize the match, setting up the inevitable winner in stoppage time. Expect anything different?
Messi doesn’t show much emotion in even the best moments, but on Tuesday, he wept openly on the pitch after the game, surely realizing how close he’d likely just come to the end of his World Cup career. His delirious teammates, meanwhile, decided it would be a good idea to toss him into the air:
“I told him on the pitch to enjoy it because he deserved it,” Lautaro Martinez said in Spanish after the match. “I told him we would keep giving everything, for ourselves, but above all for him, because this is his last World Cup and he has given us so much.”
21 days ago
