CHICKENPIE.World Cup semifinal, Atlanta Stadium, Wednesday night, and the bracket had promised a Messi-vs-Bellingham showdown, or a Messi-vs-Kane ledger, or at minimum a Tuchel-vs-Scaloni chess match. It delivered a coronation. Argentina 2, England 1. Argentina are going back to the World Cup final. England are going home. The road that was supposed to be a tactical duel was almost none of those things. It was Messi in the 85th minute, and Messi again in the 92nd minute, and after that the night belonged to one shirt and not the other.
England had done almost everything right. They had held Argentina scoreless for the better part of an hour. Anthony Gordon, who by every pre-match brief was supposed to be the third or fourth name on the team sheet, had buried an acrobatic cross from Morgan Rogers in the 55th to make it 1-0. Harry Kane had set the counter in motion with the kind of pass that big strikers don't get credit for until the ball lands where he wanted it to land. Pickford had produced four saves. The English end of Atlanta Stadium had begun to think.
Then Messi took control. The Athletic's Oliver Kay would say afterward that the Argentinian captain had been contained for the previous eighty minutes — "moments of skill and invention, there are always those moments, but England's defenders had contained his threat." And then, as against Egypt here last week, Messi took control. Off a corner in the 85th, he laid the ball off for Enzo Fernandez to hook a shot around Pickford into the top corner. Seven minutes later, Messi gathered a loose ball on the half-turn and clipped a cross to the far post. Lautaro Martinez, on as a substitute, met it with the kind of header that ends English summers.
The viral moments were Messi throughout. Argentina's players found Pickford's tucked penalty notes on the pitch at the hydration break and waved them at the crowd. Messi reacted with the specific expression of a man who had been wanting to read those notes for a decade. Earlier, Bellingham had laughed off a heated challenge from Messi; Messi had calmly stood his ground and the cameras caught the exchange — the "Your time is coming" meme was born in two seconds and outlived the match by a hundred million retweets. England, the dark-arts merchant nation, had met the master of the dark arts at altitude and on a humid Atlanta night and run out of answers in the same minute they ran out of hope.
Argentina will play Spain in the World Cup final on Sunday — first back-to-back final since Brazil in 1958 and 1962. Messi, at thirty-nine, will play his second consecutive final. Tuchel, who had called his England team a "special breed" before the tournament, departs with the consolation that the breed turned out to be very, very hard to beat for eighty-five minutes and very, very easy to lose in the seven that mattered. In the Chickenpie version of the night, Atlanta is a maximalist bowl of flags and confetti. The Argentinian player is suspended in mid-air, both arms out. The English player has both hands over his face. Mr. Chicken is a tiny witness in the lower-left corner at pitchside, Argentina scarf over his comb, both wings raised, with the specific expression of a chicken who has just realised that Messi, in stoppage time, is not a problem you solve — it is a problem you survive. Spain will get the same treatment. The chicken got there early.
