England players and supporters stood proudly and belted out God Save the King as they prepared for the biggest match in their recent history.
Not that you could hear a word of it.
The larger Argentina fan contingent inside Atlanta Stadium drowned it out with its own singing, making it look like a lip sync gone wrong for the Three Lions.
Argentina supporters in the stadium were in full voice throughout the game. (Getty Images: Patrick Smith)
The message was resounding: This is our arena, and we will have the final say.
This World Cup semifinal was tipped to be a tempest, and while it started that way, it evolved into an Argentine love letter to football and a requiem to England’s dreams.
Argentina living on the edge
The hostilities started the day before the match, and the barbs were being traded between fans on the way to the stadium, in the concourse, in the stands.
It was all mostly good-natured, despite a rivalry that plunges into the depths of both footballing nations.
During the game, the tension was always simmering. You could sense the players at times being caught up in the occasion as they got in each other’s faces and even more often, in the referee’s.
Enzo Fernandez celebrates scoring his side’s first goal. (Getty Images: Sebastian Frej)
Argentina’s tactics were questioned, with former England goalkeeper Paul Robinson slamming the first-half officiating.
“That’s one of the worst refereeing performances I’ve seen at this World Cup. He didn’t get a grip of the game from the start,” he said on BBC radio.
But after the stormy start came the climactic finish, one that no-one could argue with.
Once England scored and retreated, Argentina marched on.
As the Three Lions ran on fumes, La Albiceleste ran on the dizzying intoxication of another near-death experience.
It was all too much for some fans to bear. (Getty Images: A. Perez Meca)
For the fourth straight knockout game, they were like daredevils perched on a cliff looking over the edge to feel the high, before being yanked back and scaling the summit.
They have been the competition’s ultimate thrill-seekers in North America, taunting their opponents to knock them down, only to rise again with more ferocity than before.
A massive part is, of course, down to their immense skill and teamwork.
Lionel Messi was instrumental in both goals in Atlanta, drawing in defenders, and finding his marks to perfection, with Enzo Fernández and Lautaro Martínez, both with superb finishes.
Lionel Messi provided assists for both of Argentina’s goals. (Getty Images: Tom Weller)
But they also have a supreme confidence and unending wells of self-belief that make this team so difficult to define in pure footballing terms.
“I think that this team plays the best when we are facing a difficult situation with adversity,” coach Lionel Scaloni said.
“After they scored, we really proved ourselves. It shows what football is to us, which is something that goes beyond tactics.
“It’s what we showed in the last 40 minutes when we scored that second one. We also had to defend and we did so. We saw everything that football is from our childhood.”
Another incredible chapter added to Lionel Messi’s career. (Getty Images: Evrim Aydin)
And just as England’s fans have experienced this type of gut-wrenching defeat so many times before and their pain does not lessen, the same goes for Argentinians’ unrestrained ecstasy.
They are the reigning world champions, they have had two of the greatest ever players to set foot on the pitch, including the one currently masterminding this campaign, and they have seen it all before.
And yet they live every win as if it is their first.
When they fell behind, they fell quiet, but only for a moment.
Just as the players lifted, so did the supporters; they sensed the comeback was on, and unleashed with wild cheering and chanting, an emotional, instinctual soundtrack to the unrelenting onslaught on England’s goal.
The players felt it too, they always do, collapsing to the ground, the embraces of relief and disbelief, the shirts whipped off to match the fans in the stands who discarded theirs long before.
Huge crowds gathered in Buenos Aires to revel in the win. (Getty Images: Tobias Skarlovnik)
The scenes in Atlanta were moving, but those coming from Buenos Aires, Miami and Melbourne, were a window into a nation’s and a diaspora’s soul.
As the fans chanted Messi’s name, he urged them to share the adulation with his teammates too.
He cannot do it alone, but Argentina certainly cannot do it without this 39-year-old titan.
“What else does he have to do to be the best player of all time? There is already no doubt about it,” Scaloni said.
Spain in their sights
Spain’s win over France was clinical and complete, a ruthless performance from a team that could carve up any opposition on the pitch.
Argentina’s victory was messy but spectacular, much like its entire campaign.
At each step everyone expects the reigning champions to finally run out of steam, but they keep pulling from untapped reserves, the envy of everyone else.
“No matter who it hurts or what they say, today once again we place ourselves among the two best in the world, and that shows that everything we did is not by chance and that no one gave us anything,” Messi said.
“This group, when they come together, brings out something special … and they play like they did today and never stop trying.”
As night falls in Atlanta, the fans are still partying, still soaking up the air that surrounded another magnificent comeback, as fireworks light up the sky.
The scenes will be the same for the team’s supporters all around the world.
Argentinians love football with a passion almost unmatched by anyone else. And as this tournament is proving, the game undoubtedly loves them back.
dan