Hello and welcome to another edition of OFFSIDE. This was a day to remember for all World Cup fans as well Lionel Messi and Argentina came back from two goals down Mohamed Salahdreams of the World Cup. Meanwhile, the Swiss beat Colombia in a penalty shootout to set up a clash with Messi’s Argentina.There was an almost biblical feeling to the whole state of affairs. With 11 minutes left in normal time and two goals, the World Cup dream looked dead and buried for Messi and Co. Much like the Israelites in the Hebrew Bible, they were proverbially trapped: Pharaoh’s men chased them and elimination stared them in the face. In the biblical version, Moses parted the Red Sea. In the soccer iteration, Messi again performed a miracle to knock the Pharaohs out of the World Cup.The difference between a good player and a great player is that in clutch situations, they elevate their game. Thierry Henry, the former partner of Messi from Barcelona, ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​And so he did, grabbing the game by the scruff of the neck, first assisting Cristian Romero’s equalizer with a cross before smashing one off the bottom of the bar to make it 2-2. At that moment, it almost felt inevitable that the proverbial sea would split, and it did deep in injury time as Enzo Fernandez finished a remarkable counterattack.
After the match, Messi, like his rival Ronaldo, was in tears, although they were tears of joy and liberation rather than regret. Messi expressed anger at his own lack of penalties and frankly, given his Shaq-like penalty record, he really should hand the duties over to someone else.He said after the match: “I had the impression that I had left the team at an important moment. But luckily, fate had something special for me at the end…”Of course, like all things in this World Cup, the whole fracas has become political.In his post-match conference, the coach of Egypt, Hossam Hassan, said that he would never watch the World Cup again because there was no justice in this competition, that there was no respect for fair play, pointing to the goal canceled by VAR and the penalty that was denied. Turning philosophical, he said life was unfair but there should be fairness in sport, channeling the man who received a red card overturned recently saying he was not convinced by the result.Those of a more progressive persuasion are convinced that Argentina was favored by FIFA for various reasons. Some say it is to promote “pro-Zionist” Messi. Others point to the lack of melanin diversity on the team because apparently every country has to cosplay like Disney movies now. Others point to Argentina’s red carpet welcome to former Nazis. Some even say that Egypt was punished for being “pro-Palestine”. Of course, one could point out that Egypt’s “pro-Palestine” Rafah border with Palestine is heavily fortified to prevent any Palestinians from venturing in, much like the solid performance of goalkeeper Mostafa Shobeir in the first half.
Swiss fans cheer as they watch the 2026 FIFA World Cup match between Switzerland and Colombia at a public viewing in Zurich, Switzerland on Tuesday, July 7, 2026. (Claudio Thoma/Keystone via AP)
It’s really interesting how the world puts crude political epithets on Messi’s shelf, including political results across the globe, including India, where the state of West Bengal saw a political reversal in the wake of Messi’s disastrous visit. Causality is as real as the number of pirates in the world is inversely proportional to global warming.However, in the real world, Messi faces the most neutral of political opponents in his next party, those who did not even choose sides while the wars tore the continent apart: Switzerland.While Argentina were busy turning the Book of Exodus into stoppage-time football, Switzerland and Colombia were playing a very different kind of knockout game: one 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 that the two teams spent two hours doing everything, except the one thing that the sport is called. Colombia, who had already sent Ghana home in the previous round, found themselves trapped in a Swiss vault where the talent went to make papers and never came back.And then came the penalties, where Switzerland did what Switzerland does so often: keep calm while everyone else discovers the emotional limits of the human nervous system. The Swiss won 4-3 in the shootout, Colombia’s World Cup dream evaporated from 12 yards, and the tournament got the quarter-final that geopolitical satirists quietly prayed for: Argentina against Switzerland.
