KANSAS CITY – Julian Alvarez pulled the trigger from 25 yards, found the top corner, and the question disappeared. For 102 minutes of a World Cup quarterfinal, Argentina had looked like a team waiting for something to go wrong. When Alvarez’s curling strike settled into the net at Arrowhead Stadium on Saturday, what came next was inevitable: Lautaro Martinez added a third in stoppage time of extra time, and Argentina were in the semifinals again.
The final score was 3-1, Argentina over Switzerland, after 120 minutes. It was never a comfortable win, but it was never really in doubt either – not once Breel Embolo was sent off with eighteen minutes of regulation still to play, reduced to ten men by a VAR decision that Swiss head coach Murat Yakin called one of the strangest rulings he had seen in thirty years of football.
Argentina opened the scoring with the kind of move that has defined their tournament. Lionel Messi, drifting into a corner kick position, curled the ball to the near post with a precision that bordered on casual. Alexis Mac Allister met it eight yards out, arrived a fraction of a second before the Swiss defenders, and directed a firm header past Yann Sommer. The crowd at Arrowhead, already tilted toward the blue-and-white, found a new level.
Mac Allister’s goal was Messi’s tenth assist across six World Cup tournaments – a record that now sits alongside every other number from his career as something that will take decades to reach again, if it is ever reached at all. Messi finished the night without a goal of his own, but two assists mean the question of the Golden Boot – which he shares with France’s Kylian Mbappé at eight goals apiece – will be settled at the semifinal, or perhaps the final.
Switzerland had not lost in the knockout rounds without a fight this tournament. Against Colombia in the round of 16, they survived 120 minutes and a penalty shootout. Against Argentina on Saturday, they waited until the 67th minute before drawing level, Dan Ndoye finishing from inside the box after Ricardo Rodriguez’s cross found the far side of the penalty area. For twenty minutes, Kansas City belonged to Switzerland.
Then Embolo and VAR conspired to change everything. With Argentina’s Leandro Paredes challenging for a loose ball, Embolo went to ground in a motion that the referee originally read as a foul on the Swiss forward. Paredes received a yellow card. Then the review screen showed what the live match had masked: Embolo had dived. The referee reversed his decision, cancelled Paredes’s booking, and issued Embolo a second yellow. It was the first time in this World Cup that a VAR-detected simulation had resulted in a dismissal by mistaken identity.
Yakin argued at full time that the VAR threshold had not been met, that the contact was ambiguous, and that reducing his side to ten men with eighteen minutes left was a decision that rendered the tactical battle meaningless. He was not entirely wrong about the result. Argentina, who had struggled to press through a compact Swiss block for most of the ninety, found considerably more space in extra time.
Alvarez found it in the 112th minute, collecting a cutback thirty yards from goal, shifting his weight left, and driving a curling effort past Sommer’s reach and into the top right corner. It was the kind of goal that belongs to a highlight reel and a semifinal announcement simultaneously. Martinez, timing a run off the shoulder of the last defender, made it three in added time.
Argentina’s unbeaten streak at the World Cup now extends to twelve matches – eleven wins and a draw – covering tournaments in Qatar and now the United States, Canada and Mexico. They arrived in Kansas City as the defending champions and leave as heavy favorites heading into the semifinal stage. Whether that changes anything is a different question.
What changes on Wednesday is the opponent. England beat Norway 2-1 earlier on Saturday, Jude Bellingham scoring twice – once in each half – to settle a match that had looked like it was heading toward extra time as late as the 80th minute. England had lost two of their previous three World Cup quarterfinals. They arrive in Atlanta for the semifinal without that weight on their shoulders for now, though history and Argentina together constitute a pressure that does not require a scoresheet reminder.
The last time England faced Argentina at a World Cup was 1998, when David Beckham’s red card became the defining image of a generation of English football. Arab News reported that Argentina’s victory over Switzerland was notable both for Messi’s record-extending assist tally and for the unprecedented VAR intervention that defined the contest. Neither the scoreline nor the red card will be forgotten easily in Zurich.
Scaloni, Argentina’s coach, said his side had suffered on Saturday. “The truth is we suffered today,” he said after the final whistle. “We knew they were a very physical team.” His players recovered the lead through force of will – and a man advantage they did not seek, only benefited from.
Julian Alvarez, whose curling strike broke Swiss resistance, said the team “kept trying until the end” despite the game becoming complicated. Both he and Scaloni deflected questions about England, preferring to focus on the recovery window before Wednesday and the specifics of Martinez’s physical condition after back-to-back matches into extra time.
Switzerland depart with their best World Cup finish since 1954, and with a level of defensive organization across six matches that made them harder to beat than their seeding suggested. Colombia, the team Switzerland eliminated in the round of 16, needed a penalty shootout to separate the sides. Argentina needed extra time and a man advantage. The Swiss will return home having exceeded every reasonable expectation – and with a debate about Embolo’s red card that is unlikely to end soon.
Argentina and England meet on Wednesday in Atlanta. The other semifinal will see France face Spain. What the final looks like from here depends on answers that two more matches have yet to provide. What is already settled is that Messi will play on, and that the defending champions are not finished defending anything yet.
