Hello and welcome to another edition of OFFSIDE. It will be a day to remember for all World Cup fans Lionel Messi and Argentina came back from two goals to the grave Mohamed SalahWorld Cup dreams. Meanwhile, the Swiss defeated Colombia in a penalty shootout to face Messi’s Argentina.There is an almost Biblical feeling to the whole state of affairs. With 11 minutes left in normal time and two goals, the dream of the World Cup appeared dead and buried for Messi and Co. Like the Israelites in the Hebrew Bible, they are trapped. Pharaoh’s men chasing them and elimination stared them in the face. In the Bible version, Moses parted the Red Sea. On the return of football, Messi once again performed a miracle to eliminate the Pharaohs from the World Cup.The difference between a good player and a great player is that in clutch situations, they raise their game. Thierry Henry, Messi’s former teammate from Barcelona, “You don’t (want to) wake up the beast. You look into his eyes, and he changes… when his team needs him, he raises his game.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 under the bar to make it 2-2. At that moment, it was almost inevitable that the proverbial sea would split, and it did so deep in injury time when Enzo Fernandez finished off an incredible attack.
After the match, Messi, like his rival Ronaldo, cried, although they were tears of joy and release rather than regret. Messi expressed anger at his own penalty miss and, frankly, given his Shaq-like penalty record, he should have handed the duties to someone else.He said after the game. “I feel that I failed the team in an important moment. But luckily, fate has something special for me in the end…”Of course, like everything in this World Cup, the whole fracas became political.In his post-match conference, Egypt’s head coach Hossam Hassan said that he will not watch the World Cup again because there is no justice in this competition, without respect for fair play, pointing to the goal that was canceled by VAR and the penalty that was denied. Philosophically, he pointed out that life is not fair but there must be fairness in sport, passing the man who got a red card revoked recently by declaring that he was not convinced of the result.Those of a more progressive persuasion are convinced that Argentina is favored by FIFA for various reasons. Some claimed it was to promote the “pro-Zionist” Messi. Some point to the lack of melanin diversity in the squad because apparently all countries have to cosplay like Disney movies now. Others pointed to Argentina’s red carpet welcome for former Nazis. Some say Egypt is being punished for being “pro-Palestine”. Of course, one can point out that the “pro-Palestinian” Rafah border between Egypt and Palestine was heavily fortified to prevent any Palestinians from entering, as was the solid performance of keeper Mostafa Shobeir in the first half.
Swiss fans cheer as they watch the 2026 FIFA World Cup soccer round of 16 soccer match between Switzerland and Colombia at the public viewing in Zurich, Switzerland on Tuesday, July 7, 2026. (Claudio Thoma/Keystone via AP)
It is very interesting how the world put bad political epithets on Messi’s shelf, including political consequences around the world, including India, where the state of West Bengal saw a change in the politics of the hullabaloo of Messi’s disastrous visit. The reason is as real as the number of pirates around the world which is inversely proportional to global warming.Either way, in the real world, Messi faces the most neutral political opponents in his next game, without even choosing sides as wars ravage the continent. Switzerland.While Argentina was 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 sometimes be audited by chartered accountants. It ended 0-0 after 120 minutes, which is a way of saying that both teams spent two hours doing everything but something called the game. Colombia, who had already returned home to Ghana in the previous round, found themselves trapped in a Swiss vault where the talent went to file papers and never returned.And then came the penalties, where Switzerland did what Switzerland always does. keep calm as everyone discovers the emotional limits of the human nervous system. The Swiss won 4-3 in the shootout, Colombia’s World Cup dream vanished from 12 yards, and the tournament got the quarter-final quietly prayed for by geopolitical satirists. Argentina vs. Switzerland.