Ten minutes in and it looked routine: Messi swung in a corner, Alexis Mac Allister rose like he had a personal grudge against gravity, and Argentina had the lead. The defending champions settled into that smug, we have done this before rhythm, knocking it around while Switzerland dug a trench and prayed. For an hour it felt like a formality just waiting for the scoreline to grow.

Then Switzerland remembered they had legs. Dan Ndoye curled a beauty into the corner in the 67th minute and suddenly the champions were sweating through their shirts. Five minutes later Breel Embolo decided to freelance in the theatre department, hurling himself to the turf hunting a foul that was never there. The referee produced a second yellow, VAR took a long hard look at the flop, and Switzerland were down to ten. Somehow the ten men held, dragged Argentina into extra time, and made the favourites earn every blade of grass.

Extra time is where depth talks and Argentina's bench screams. Julian Alvarez stepped up in the 112th minute and absolutely rifled a right-footed rocket into the far upper corner, the kind of finish that ends arguments. Lautaro Martinez tacked on a late third to make it 3-1 and put a respectable gloss on a very disrespectful night. Messi conducted the whole thing without scoring, his first blank in ten matches, and still looked like the smartest man on the pitch. Next stop: England in Atlanta.