Lionel Scaloni had barely sat down before he admitted the obvious.

Argentina had put its supporters through unnecessary “suffering”. Yet the manager was in no mood to apologise for the chaos. What he had witnessed, he felt, was something larger than a comeback win over Egypt, larger even than qualification. It was proof of the sort of team Argentina is, a side which never gives up.

“We made our people suffer even though we didn’t play a bad game,” Scaloni said after the 3-2 victory. “I am a coach for moments like this. The calibre of what we saw goes beyond just going through (to the quarterfinals). We would have been out if we didn’t fight.”

Scaloni insisted that Argentina had not been as poor as the scoreline at one stage suggested. Egypt, he acknowledged, was “an excellent team” that converted its openings well, but he pointed to the opportunities his own side had created long before the late surge. “We had three or four clear chances and if we had scored, nobody would talk about it. We had to dig in.”

Even when Argentina fell two goals behind, the chief coach never felt that the game had escaped it completely. “You feel concerned when you are not in control, but today we were. I saw the game going our way as we created chances.” It was, in effect, an argument that Argentina’s tough times came not from inferiority but from wastefulness.

The emotional centre of Scaloni’s night was Lionel Messi. The captain failed to convert a penalty and looked, for a while, like the tragic figure in Argentina’s elimination story. But he then became one of the authors of its rescue. “Messi is a role model for all the players,” Scaloni said. “He missed a penalty, but he still asks for the ball and goes on and on.”

He stopped short of placing the “epic” night alongside the World Cup final in Qatar but suggested that it belonged to the same emotional universe. Messi, he said, “lives football for moments like this”, and Argentina wanted him to keep enjoying them while he still could.

But Scaloni was careful not to let the story become only about him or his captain. “It’s useless to say we win because of my actions. We have these great players, and you use them when you need them. That’s not genius. The players are making the difference”.

Lionel Messi inspired Argentina to a remarkable World Cup ‌comeback as they came from two goals down to beat Egypt 3-2 in a dramatic ​last-16 game on Tuesday (July 7, 2026).

The holders were 11 minutes from a shock defeat trailing 2-0, ⁠but goals from Cristian Romero, Messi and the winner two minutes into stoppage time from Enzo Fernandez kept them in the competition.

Argentina vs Egypt, FIFA World Cup Highlights

Egypt had been on the brink of one of the great World Cup upsets after goals from Yasser Ibrahim ‌and Mostafa Zico. Messi had squandered an early penalty.

The Africans fell apart in the closing stages, however, as Argentina’s captain inspired his side in a dramatic turnaround.

The 39-year-old, whose record ‌World Cup goal haul is now up to 21, was again central to his country’s hopes ‌and ⁠constantly probing for an opportunity but found his efforts stymied by determined defending until near ⁠the end of another thrilling match at the tournament.

Messi, who was in floods of tears at the end, provided the cross from which Romero headed home to start the comeback.

Four minutes later, Messi crashed home the equaliser after substitutes Lautaro Martinez and Gonzalo ​Montiel had both got touches to keep the ‌ball away from Egyptian defenders.

Counter-attack winner

The winner came from a counter-attack as Lautaro Martinez crossed from the right and Fernandez cushioned a back-post header past goalkeeper Mostafa Shoubir, who had done much earlier to keep his team in the game.

Egypt felt they deserved a penalty before the breakaway and vociferously ‌complained but to no avail.

The North Africans were surprisingly attacking in the early stages, bucking their ​recent tendency of sitting back and looking for counter-attack opportunities, and they opened the scoring after 15 minutes.

Emam Ashour attempted to tease his way past the Argentine defence ⁠on the right flank but, seeing no way through, passed back to Marwan Attia, who floated in a long cross that Ibrahim rose to easily head home.

The lead should have only lasted four minutes as Haissem Hassan ‌caught overlapping Argentine fullback Nicolas Tagliafico with a late tackle to give away a penalty.

But it only served to mark the start of the goalkeeping heroics of Shoubir, whose dive to the left easily stopped a left-footed effort from Messi that was too close to the keeper.

Messi became the first player to miss two penalties at a World Cup after also failing from the spot against Austria in the group phase.

Miraculous saves from Egypt’s keeper

Shoubir made a reflex stop to deny a point-blank header from Alexis Mac Allister in the ‌28th minute, and pulled off an even more extraordinary save six minutes from halftime to stop Julian Alvarez’s shot, stretching ​to turn the ball around the post.

In between, Messi crashed a free kick against the post.

Egypt had the ball in the net in the 62nd minute but Zico’s finish, after ⁠a sweeping move with Hassan’s trickery and Mohamed Salah’s pass, was chalked off after a VAR review found that ⁠Attia had fouled Lisandro Martinez in the build-up.

But five minutes later, they swept further into the lead in similar circumstances. Salah swept the ball forward on the counter, Hassan took it ‌to the byline, and Zico came storming in to finish the cutback pass.

But once Egypt began to sit back, they invited Messi to perform his heroics and paid a heavy price.

Argentina advanced to ​a Saturday quarterfinal in Kansas City against the winners of the later game on Tuesday between Colombia and Switzerland in Vancouver.

Both Argentina and Egypt needed 120 draining minutes to survive their opening knockout ties and had barely four days to recover before meeting for a place in the World Cup quarterfinals.

For Argentina, that short turnaround has come with a little more anxiety after Lionel Scaloni’s side, so smooth through the group stage, came within minutes of a seismic upset before edging Cabo Verde 3-2 after extra-time. Egypt, meanwhile, is here after beating Australia 4-2 (1-1 after extra-time) on penalties.

Scaloni did not hide his frustration with the scheduling after the win in Miami. “Now to rest. I don’t know how the World Cup is made but we had six days, and now we have three and a half. When you need the rest the most, you have the least.”

The holders looked vulnerable for the first time against Cabo Verde, unable to control the game as they had in the group stage and was repeatedly exposed in transition, even though Lionel Messi still found time to score his 20th World Cup goal.

The Latin American team’s discomfort with physicality will encourage Hossam Hassan’s Egypt, which has been built on defensive discipline and quick breaks through Mohamed Salah and Omar Marmoush.

“We aren’t focusing on Messi,” assistant coach Ibrahim Hassan said. “They might have Messi, but we have Mohamed Salah, and we have 26 Messis of our own.”

The tactical contrast is clear. Argentina will try to reassert midfield control and might bring in Leandro Paredes to bolster the inner channels and support Enzo Fernandez and Alexis Mac Allister.

Egypt will sit in a compact block and wait for moments to release Salah and Marmoush into the spaces, following the blueprint Cabo Verde found. Ahmed El Fotouh, Karim Hafez and Mohamed Abdelmonem are racing against time to recover from knocks, while Argentina might bring back Nicolas Tagliafico to the left side of the defence ahead of Facundo Medina.

Scaloni is expected to keep faith with the same core, but after 120 exhausting minutes, Atlanta may reveal whether Friday was merely a stumble or the first real crack in the champions’ defence.

Match starts at 9.30 p.m. IST