Si No Sufrimos, No Vale

It's really not easy to be an Argentino. I'm not sure what we all did in a previous life to deserve so much suffering, but it is impressively consistent. I think about that famous line Ivan once laid on me during the 2022 World Cup: "Si no sufrimos, no vale." And I think about that a lot — how we suffered during Holland, during France, and during that recent nail biter vs. Cabo Verde. I was torn on whether to even wear my jersey into the office, putting it on and taking it off twice before deciding it was bad luck — we had barely won the last game against the lowest-ranked team; obviously the kit was cursed from the outset.

I wasn't entirely surprised when Egypt scored the first goal within 14 minutes. I was in the mandatory training about Backup and Security, trying my hardest to respectfully listen to the chubby 28-year-old speaking in monotone. His voice wasn't low and monotone like Colin's but rather that mid-range wah-wah monotone that made him sound like the adults from Peanuts. The rest of my team joined the meeting on their phones and went about getting their coffees and going about their morning routines. The first goal was nothing special — a cross from outside the box found the 6'1 Egyptian Center Back, Yasser Ibrahim, who leapt over the 5'9 Lisandro Martinez to win an easy header and put the ball in the back of the net. There wasn't much Dibu could've done if he'd even bothered to dive. 0-1, but plenty of time left in the game.

Around the 18th minute, a beautifully placed pass by Enzo Fernandez into the box saw Nico Tagliafico in on goal — until he was heavily brought down by the Egyptian defender, and the French referee, François Letexier, didn't hesitate to point to the spot.

Messi stepped up, calm and composed — ready to do what he'd done so many times before, including in just about every game in the last World Cup. Peacock started lagging, so we switched the streaming over to Sina's phone, where he had a less-than-legal Turkish streaming platform, which immediately worked — it was in better definition, and even a few seconds ahead of the official stream. So I got to see Messi take the worst penalty kick in high definition. Lucky me. It was a conservative shot, clearly designed to put the ball on the frame of goal and avoid missing — mid-height and to his right, about two feet from the post, essentially in the middle of the goal and well within the goalkeeper's reach. It didn't look to be Messi's day.

And things only seemed to get worse. Every pass, every attempted dribble, every cross — nothing was going right for La Pulga. Crosses hitting defenders, passes being misplaced, feints and maneuvers into the legs of defenders — something was off. But Argentina wasn't going to sit back and let Egypt coast. They turned up the pressure offensively. Messi ripped a free kick at goal from over 30 yards away, rocketing the shot off the post and giving Mostafa Shobeir a scare. At the 38th minute, we were still down 0-1 but the pressure was mounting. A long, lofted pass by Leandro Paredes into the box was met by Tagliafico, who timed his run to perfection, sliding and placing the cross on a silver platter to Julián Alvarez, who met it perfectly on the volley, guiding the ball towards the back post. There wasn't a lot more any of them could've done. But Shobeir came up with an incredible save to hold his clean sheet. The first half ended 0-1 to the Pharaohs.

By this point, I decided that I wasn't going to get any work done during this game. It wasn't possible to do both, and half-assing work and the game only meant that I couldn't properly pay attention to the content of the meeting — impossible, given the Peanuts presenter — and I'd also missed the first goal because I couldn't properly watch the game either. It was a worst of both worlds. So I decided to leave my laptop, take my work phone, and head to El Faro for a breakfast burrito. I knew they'd have the game on.

I walked inside and briefly chatted with Oscar, ordering my usual breakfast burrito (spicy) to-go, before a Hispanic gentleman who looked to be in his mid-forties asked if he could sit down next to me at the table. He spoke Spanish to the staff and was clearly a regular like me. He ordered a burrito mojado.

"Of course," I said, pulling out a chair for him. The TV hung on the wall up above my head, the table placed so those seated where I was could look up not too uncomfortably. Normally it was telenovelas, but today it was the second half of the game.

In the 57th minute, Lisandro Martinez — who was inexplicably in the Egyptian final third — decided to dribble past defenders, nutmegging Hany, before getting stomped on by Attia and dispossessed. The Egyptians then raced away, Attia passing to Hassan, who went on a legendary 50-yard run, racing past the slaps and tugs of the retreating Julián Alvarez, and nutmegging Tagliafico, before laying off the ball to Salah, who placed a perfect through ball to Ziko, who was wide open and didn't make any mistakes putting the ball in the back of the net. He celebrated by taking off his jersey and racing to the corner.

The Mexicans in the kitchen cheered at the goal. The guy with the mojado burrito looked over consolingly, saying there was still plenty of time. I just stared at the screen in disbelief, stunned that we were down two goals to Egypt.

And I was just as surprised when VAR decided to review the play leading up to the goal. When Letexier went to the screen, we got a closer look at the foul. Just as I'd thought when seeing it live, it was clearly a stomp. Why the referee hadn't called it live was beyond me, but the foul was plain — and obviously had impacted the goal that followed, because it had led to the play, and the player who got stomped was our central defender. Which, again — and I really wish I could let this one go — Licha, why were you up there, you fucking idiot?

We got lucky. But still 0-1. And now we were running out of time.

Scaloni was clearly on the same page, because at the 65th minute he subbed on Lautaro Martinez for Rodrigo De Paul and Nico Gonzalez for Nico Tagliafico. I was a big fan of the Martinez sub — De Paul was playing his heart out but wasn't putting the ball into the goal. We needed goals to come from somewhere, so why not from Serie A's Capocannoniere.

Egypt responded by promptly scoring another goal. Once again, Salah, Hassan, and Ziko combining to pass the ball with impunity through the lazy Argentina defense. In the end, Egypt made the finish look easy. This time Ziko kept his jersey on during the celebrations. The atmosphere in El Faro was getting tense, as everyone around me offered their condolences and I ignored them all, staring at the screen. I couldn't accept that this was how it was going to end. Messi's final World Cup couldn't end with this disgraceful performance.

I had messages from various friends. Ali, Leo Larrere, Aline, the various group chats with family and soccer teammates. My favorite one came from Leo: "If Argentina finds a way to win on the wire again I'm gonna lose it. I'm glad I'm not Argentinian, every single game feels super stressful. It's like you can only win if you suffer lol."

"It's our cross to bear," I responded. "We can't make it easy to win."

A few moments later, as Messi continued to cross passes into chests and attempt dribbles into defenders' legs, I messaged again: "Goddamn we are playing horrible. It's one thing if the other team plays well, but we are just playing like shit on defense and letting anything in. Zero credit to Egypt here. We are just losing."

In the 78th minute, we finally caught a break. Crossing from nearly the same spot where Egypt had in the first fifteen minutes, Messi placed a beautiful pass — one which finally did not hit a defender — right to the head of Cristian Romero, who threw his entire weight into redirecting the header. Shobeir got a full hand on it, but it wasn't enough to stop the ball from its inevitable path into the back of the net. I couldn't celebrate by shouting "goal!" — it didn't feel right — but I turned around and looked for acknowledgement from anyone in the taco shop. I saw only a random white finance bro in a vest, who seemed entirely indifferent to the game. "That's better, right?" I said, before turning back to the screen. He didn't say anything. Game on.

In the 81st minute, Messi went on a proper Messi dribble — weaving and gliding between four defenders into the box, drawing everyone to him, before placing a cross to Lautaro Martinez at the six-yard box, who could've had a tap-in. If only it hadn't gone a foot wide of the goal. Had that gone in, that dribble would've gone down as an all-time moment.

In the 83rd minute, Messi placed another cross into the box, this time deflected on its way in. Lautaro Martinez still found the ricocheted ball and did an acrobatic volley to pass back in front of goal, where Julián Alvarez managed to lay off the pass to Messi, who hit the volley first-time through a crowd of seven players, including five Egyptian defenders. Shobeir got two hands on the shot, but it was a rocket destined for the back of the net, bouncing off the underside of the crossbar into the goal. I cheered and celebrated alongside the players on the field, who slid on their knees and waved their arms to hype up the crowd in Atlanta. Messi ran to the corner, pumping his fist, jumping up and down like a kid scoring his first goal, with Enzo and Julián rushing over, jumping and crying with their captain.

It looked like things were destined for extra time. The referee showed seven minutes of additional time after the 90th minute, and I fully expected Argentina to grind out the victory over thirty minutes. They were now dominating Egypt, looking dangerous almost every minute — it seemed almost inevitable if the game would go on like this. For some reason, Scaloni chose this moment to sub in Otamendi and Medina. Whatever. A few more defenders can't hurt.

We had a scare in the box, where Julián Alvarez dispossessed Salah and passed the ball out wide to Lautaro, who found himself in acres of space. Five Egyptian defenders and midfielders slowly tracked back, leaving a single defender to handle the incoming Enzo Fernandez and Nico Gonzalez. Lautaro's cross was a thing of beauty, sailing across a perfect arc to its destination: the head of Enzo Fernandez, who kept his eyes open and guided the ball carefully into the back post. I'd seen him score this exact goal at Chelsea, and wasn't surprised to see him crash the box and score. He pointed to his chest, thumping it, rushing to the bench to celebrate with his teammates, who jumped all over him.

The Egyptian manager, Hossam Hassan, freaked out. Claiming it was rigged, making an X with his arms to signal racial abuse to the referee so he could complain about the goal. He was given a yellow card and one of his staff was given a red card as he rushed onto the field seemingly to attack the referee. Oddly, one of the staff looked identical to Hassan, to the point where I looked up whether he has an identical twin — and indeed he does. His twin is named Ibrahim Hassan and is on the coaching staff for the Egypt national team. Today I learned. Also, today I learned what a bunch of sore losers these dudes are. They haven't shut up about the corruption and unfairness, never acknowledging that they gave up a 2-0 lead with fifteen minutes left in the game. The refs didn't do that to you, Habibi. But it is funny watching such a petulant, unprofessional meltdown. FIFA being corrupt? Shocked Pikachu.