Argentina needed extra time and a red card to beat Switzerland 3-1 in Kansas City on Sunday, and the mythology machine is already processing the result into something clean.
Alexis Mac Allister headed Argentina in front in the 10th minute off a Messi delivery — the kind of goal that confirms the script everyone arrived expecting. Then Switzerland, a team no one was writing odes to before kickoff, scored through Dan Ndoye in the 67th minute; a curled finish from a narrow angle that Argentina’s defense decided, collectively, to watch. For five minutes, it was 1-1 and the match was still anyone’s game. Then Breel Embolo went to ground, VAR reviewed it, ruled it simulation, and handed him a red card at the 72nd minute. Switzerland had ten men. The natural order was restored — or so the narrative required.
What followed was forty minutes of Argentina, the reigning world champions, possessing enough theoretical quality to beat nearly any team on the planet, unable to break through a defense operating with a man disadvantage. This is worth sitting with before moving on to the Alvarez goal, which was spectacular, and which will swallow the next 48 hours of coverage. Switzerland had ten men and held Argentina level for the entirety of regulation. Every minute of that stalemate is a data point; the 3-1 scoreline hides all of them.
The mythology surrounding Argentina in this tournament has operated on a similar logic throughout the competition. This is their second match going to extra time — the other came against Cape Verde in the Round of 32, a team that does not possess comparable personnel to what Argentina will face in Atlanta. When results are close, the explanation offered is “Messi magic” or “champions finding a way.” The explanation that receives less airtime: a midfield that loses shape against organized defenses, and a team built on individual moments that cannot impose itself when the opponent decides to be disciplined and compact. Switzerland read the blueprint and nearly executed it. They were one simulation-detected red card away from forcing Argentina into a penalty shootout.
Then Julian Alvarez scored from 25 yards in the 112th minute, a fizzing effort that rifled into the top right corner, and Lautaro Martinez added a third on a counterattack in the 121st minute, and the final score became Argentina 3-1 Switzerland. The counterargument is obvious: Argentina won, and Alvarez’s goal was genuinely beautiful, the kind of strike that justifies every preceding minute of tedium. Winners find ways. Two goals in nine minutes of extra time from a team of this quality is a form of evidence.
It is also possible to hold both things simultaneously: that Alvarez’s goal was real, and that the match that preceded it revealed something the Argentine Football Association would prefer not to examine before Wednesday.
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The 3-1 scoreline will circulate without context. Tomorrow’s headlines will reference Argentina’s “dominant quarterfinal performance,” and the 40 minutes of deadlock against ten men will be compressed into a clause, then a footnote, then nothing. When England line up against them in Atlanta on Wednesday, they will have access to 120 minutes of film showing exactly how to organize against this Argentine midfield, exactly how long they can absorb pressure before something individual and unrepeatable has to rescue the team. England has the personnel to run that plan without needing a red card to make it viable.
The scoreline says Argentina won convincingly. Switzerland, for approximately 100 minutes on Sunday in Kansas City, would like a word.
