sultan

Camp Nou is our place of worship

[Sid Lowe @sidlowe]

In this star-powered World Cup, Spain show the value of the collective and control | Spain | The Guardian https://t.co/1PlpxeGcZf

[Barney Ronay @barneyronay]

Messi. Just better…
https://t.co/493dsK58rU

[The Athletic | Football @TheAthleticFC]

This time was meant to be different for England. Not least because in Thomas Tuchel, the FA had paid the money to recruit the best manager at this World Cup.

Someone who would be able to plan and engineer a way through this tournament, taking advantage of the physical edge of a squad of Premier League players.

Instead it ended the same way it always does, with England offering nothing in attack, retreating and retreating and retreating until they were overwhelmed.

The only difference was that this time England chose their own destruction.

📝 @JackPittBrooke ⬇️

https://t.co/U5u3kykDN8

[The Athletic | Football @TheAthleticFC]

Lionel Messi had never faced England before. He’d famously been told, in his prime, by deluded English commentators that he probably couldn’t do it on a cold and windy night in Stoke.

But at 39, he still could do it in an air-conditioned dome in Atlanta.

How do Argentina keep doing it? They continue to go to the well and it is never empty. How long they’ve played this summer never seems to matter. How far they’ve travelled always, inexplicably, counts for little. They draw on reserves most oil-rich countries must envy.

Energy is always found in one place deep down inside; it’s derived from giving Messi one more game. Another 90 minutes.

When every game feels like it might be his last the Argentina players make a sacrifice for their football god.

📝 @JamesHorncastle

https://t.co/g2352L2EQg

[The Touchline | �� @TouchlineX]

🚨🗣️ 𝗡𝗘𝗪: Cuti Romero responds to the former England players who labelled him and Lisandro Martínez a "bad centre-back duo" before the match:

"Yes... Lisandro and me played today with a bit MORE ANGER than others... Because in England they are used to TALKING a lot before games."

[Fabrizio Romano @FabrizioRomano]

🩵🤍 Leo Messi: “I have been preparing for this World Cup for almost a year”.

“I spent December in Argentina, training morning and afternoon, because I knew I was going to give everything to arrive in the best possible shape”.

[BorasLegend @ivanlapanje]

Messi at 39. I can't believe what I just witnessed. 90 minutes in 30 celsius vs one of the most physical teams out there. What can you even say? The greatest athlete of all time. No one is even close. We thought Qatar was the pinnacle. But somehow, he’s doing it all again.

[Nate Scott @aNateScott]

need argentina to win.

england will respect and fear spain, defend resolutely, lose 1-0, and hold their heads high.

argentina players fear only two things: 1) letting messi down, and 2) god.

they’ll rip cucurella’s hair out. they do not care.

[Jacob Steinberg @JacobSteinberg]

It was supposed to be different under Thomas Tuchel. But the expensive elite coach showed fear and messed it up. A familiar failure for England

https://t.co/zstfwSOqs0

[Front Office Sports @FOS]

Lionel Messi once held a baby Lamine Yamal for a charity photoshoot.

19 years later, the two will play against each other in the World Cup final.

[The Athletic | Football @TheAthleticFC]

Argentina is a vast country that stretches from deserts in the north to glaciers in the south.

But from spectacular waterfalls on the border with Brazil, to the church of Diego Maradona in Rosario, to icy Patagonia, there is one thing that unites the country: support for Lionel Messi and the national team.

@Tomas_Hill spoke to fans all over the country to find out what Argentina’s World Cup run means to them.

🔗 https://t.co/iXSY0TgWK3

[Henry Winter @henrywinter]

Don’t cry for us, Argentina. You won’t anyway. You deserved victory. England didn’t. Tuchel didn’t. Those subs. Report from Atlanta on the lengthening years of hurt. #ENGARG

[The Washington Post @washingtonpost]

Deep in the Congolese rainforest, scientists have discovered a new species of monkey so elusive even local communities knew little of its existence.

Dubbed “Likweli,” it sports a black coat, a pink and orange mouth and a low, roaring call. https://t.co/I2RE511z60

[Henry Winter @henrywinter]

Argentina celebrations. Another final.

[ESPN FC @ESPNFC]

Two eras of Barcelona. One trophy for their nations.

[The Athletic | Football @TheAthleticFC]

Lionel Messi had made relatively little impact on the game. There were moments of skill and invention — there are always those moments — but England’s defenders had contained his threat.

And then, as against Egypt last week, Messi took control.

He didn’t score either goal, but he made them both, drawing defenders too him and picking out an unmarked Enzo Fernandez to score from distance for the equaliser and then producing a wonderful cross — with his right foot, no less — to pick out Lautaro Martinez for the winner.

People used to say of Messi that he couldn’t deliver for Argentina when the pressure was on. What a joke that sounds like now.

📝 @OliverKay

https://t.co/7VD60KqY2x

[Premier League Panel @PremLeaguePanel]

Let’s just say though: you can park whatever bus you want, the number of unbelievable passes and crosses that Messi was playing to force the win… He is still the best creator in the world at 39 years old. Which is absolutely ridiculous.

[The New Yorker @NewYorker]

Lamine Yamal, the team’s wunderkind, is thrilling, but discipline and patience have seen them through to the final. https://t.co/6kbbwD9HkE

[Telegraph Football @TeleFootball]

There are few players who command the complete reverence of their team-mates, young and old, when they themselves are still at the very top of the tree.

Then again, there have been precious few careers like that of Lionel Messi, who increasingly looks like Christ among the apostles when it comes to his Argentina team-mates.

@SamWallaceTel looks inside the cult of Lionel Messi ⤵️
https://t.co/7d12kdcjuM

[Adam Bate @ghostgoal]

Love Pau Cubarsi.

Oscar García told me that he will be one of the top five centre-backs in history and I’m not sure he’s wrong.

https://t.co/ekikTbtBI1