Lionel Messi had seen something: not much but just enough to be everything. An hour had gone and Argentina had been unable to find a way through against Mexico when he approached and had a quiet word. Within a minute, by his teammate’s calculations, he was approaching again. This time he was running, shouting, losing it, leaping into Di María’s arms, his shot having just flown into the Mexico net. He had hit it from exactly where he said he would. This was, he admitted, a “great liberation”.
“We have overcome a difficult test,” Messi said. “Although we trusted in ourselves, in what we can do, at the hour of truth lots of things go through your mind and it can be difficult to isolate yourself from everything. But this group is ready. We have taken a very important step; now we have to take another one.”
