Дэлхийн аваргын хагас шигшээд Аргентин болон Английн шигшээ багууд хүч үзэх гэж байгаа нь Лионель Мессигийн карьер дахь онцгой үйл явдал болох юм.
Олон улсын тавцанд 205 тоглолтод оролцож, 62 улсын эсрэг тоглосон найман удаагийн “Алтан бөмбөг”-ийн эзэн Лионель Месси карьертаа анх удаа Английн эсрэг тоглох гэж байна. Дэлхийн аваргын түүхэнд хоёр баг таван удаа таарч байсан ч сүүлийн тоглолт 2002 онд болсон тул Месси өмнө нь энэ өрсөлдөгчтэй огт тулгарч байгаагүй юм. Тэдний замнал 2005 онд нэг удаа огтлолцох боломжтой байсан ч Месси тухайн үед талбайгаас хөөгдсөнөөр нөхөрсөг тоглолтыг өнжиж байв.
Тэмцээний сугалааны онцлог болон хоёр багийн амжилтын мөчлөг давхцаагүйгээс болж тэд 2010 оноос хойш учраа таараагүй юм. Энэ удаагийн ДАШТ-ийг угтан ФИФА чансаагаар эхний дөрөвт бичигдсэн багуудыг тус тусад нь сугалаанд оруулснаар Аргентин болон Англи хагас шигшээ хүртэл бие биетэйгээ таарахгүй байх боломж бүрджээ.
Месси шигшээ багийнхаа төлөө Английн эсрэг анх удаа тоглох гэж байгаа ч Аваргуудын лигийн хүрээнд Английн клубуудын эсрэг 36 удаа талбайд гарсан туршлагатай. Тэрээр эдгээр тоглолтуудад 27 гоол оруулсан бөгөөд ялангуяа Арсеналын хаалганд 6 тоглолтод 9 гоол оруулж байсан нь түүний англи багуудын эсрэг үзүүлсэн хамгийн шилдэг амжилт юм.
Дэлгэрэнгүй эх сурвалжийг харах
Эх сурвалжийг нээх ↓
Dazzling goals, infamous controversies and a fierce rivalry: England against Argentina is one of the World Cup’s most iconic fixtures.
But despite this storied history, one of the greatest players from either country is yet to take to the stage. On Wednesday, Lionel Messi will face England for the first time in his career as the rivalry is renewed in a World Cup semi-final.
It is an odd quirk of an international career spanning 205 games against 62 different countries that the eight-time Ballon d’Or winner has never faced one of international football’s traditional powers, having played practically every other heavyweight.
Of the 20 nations to have played the most World Cup matches, England are the only one never to have contended with Messi’s creative genius.
England have faced Argentina five times at the World Cup, making it their joint-most common tournament fixture, but all five meetings predate Messi’s international career, the most recent a 1-0 group-stage win in 2002 sealed by David Beckham’s penalty.
Messi made his Argentina debut in a friendly against Hungary in August 2005, but was infamously sent off within two minutes, a dismissal that left him suspended for the only England-Argentina meeting of his career three months later. The two sides played a friendly in Switzerland, which England won 3-2.
Since then, it has been a case of ships passing in the night for the two rivals, who avoided each other at the five World Cups before this one. It is not unusual, given the way the tournament is structured, for major nations to go long stretches like this without meeting.
France and the Netherlands, who have both reached the final three times, have never played each other at a World Cup. Messi has famously never faced Ronaldo on the international stage, continuing Argentina and Portugal’s non-existent shared World Cup history. The two nations have never met at the tournament, despite playing 134 matches between them.
One reason for these kinds of gaps is group-stage seeding. This means the top sides are generally kept apart and, should they progress, can still end up on opposite sides of the draw from a major rival, meaning they cannot meet until the final. In 2006, 2018 and 2022, England and Argentina were placed in opposite halves of the knockout draw, while England failed to even make it out of the group stage in 2014.
The closest they came to meeting was in 2010, when England would have faced Argentina in the quarter-finals had they beaten Germany in the round of 16, but were instead eliminated 4-1.
Beyond the randomness of the draw, the main reason is simply that England and Argentina have not often both been good enough at the same time to mount deep runs and increase their chances of meeting. During Messi’s career, 2006 and 2022 are the only tournaments in which both sides reached the quarter-finals, while this is the first in which they have both made the semi-finals.
The graphic below shows how both teams’ FIFA world rankings have dovetailed since 2005, with England in particular slumping during the 2010s. They fell to 20th in July 2014, their lowest position since 1997.
Their joint ascendancy in this decade has coincided with a change introduced for this tournament that increased their chances of meeting.
FIFA seeded the top four sides before the draw, based on the world rankings, so that if they won their groups, they could not face each other until the semi-finals. With world champions Argentina ranked first and England fourth, both topped their groups and were kept apart not only from each other, but also from France and Spain, the other two seeds, smoothing their paths towards this meeting in the last four.
Messi might be a stranger to this fixture, but he is no novice when it comes to English football.
He has faced English clubs 36 times during his career, more than those from any country in which he has never played domestically. All those meetings have come in the Champions League, the most recent a 2-1 defeat by Manchester City while playing for French side Paris Saint-Germain.
Compared with his imperious record elsewhere, Messi’s 53 per cent win rate against English clubs is his second-lowest against teams from any country he has faced at least eight times. Not that the goals dried up, though: he scored 27 times in those matches, as many as Erling Haaland managed for Manchester City last season.
He scored against all six Premier League teams he faced, but it is Arsenal fans whose nightmares he haunts the most. Messi struck nine times in six matches against them, including four in a single game for Barcelona to knock them out of the Champions League quarter-finals in 2010.
In a glittering career that has spanned the globe, Wednesday’s mammoth semi-final represents a rare novelty for a 39-year-old who has won it all. England have never faced him before, but they, like the rest of the world, are well aware of the threat he poses and the magic he can conjure.
Awareness of his genius is one thing; finding a way to stop it is another matter entirely.
