When Eng­land opened the scor­ing against Ar­genti­na in the 55th minute of their World Cup se­mi-fi­nal in At­lanta last Wednes­day, Li­onel An­drés Mes­si switched from lead singer to con­duc­tor of the or­ches­tra.

His pass to En­zo Fer­nán­dez set up the equal­is­ing strike from dis­tance. And then, in sec­ond-half added time, he evad­ed the at­ten­tion of two de­fend­ers – Djed Spence and Nico O’Reil­ly – and placed a cross on the head of Lau­taro Martínez, at the far post, for the win­ner. A cross with his weak­er foot, his right. Placed with pre­ci­sion to land be­tween Ezri Kon­sa and John Stones – ei­ther side of Mar­tinez, and a good deal taller than he is. Breath­tak­ing.

I sup­port Eng­land, but not to the point of miss­ing the sto­ry… a great play­er who as­sumed the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of dic­tat­ing the game rather than be­ing the point of at­tack, be­cause that is what his team re­quired. He dropped deep­er and shift­ed right. He didn’t need to be the star… he need­ed to make oth­ers shine.

We’re see­ing Mes­si in a World Cup for the last time, and per­haps, at 39, the five-foot-five-inch won­der has one more glo­ri­ous chap­ter left to write. If you’re read­ing this af­ter 5.30pm to­day, Sun­day, you’ll know if he suc­ceed­ed. Spain, pro­gres­sive­ly more ac­com­plished through each round of the com­pe­ti­tion, is a big hur­dle.

Against Eng­land, Mes­si played the game in front of him. Cross­es from wide, head­ers. Eng­lish fare. He beat them at their own game. Spain will serve con­ti­nen­tal break­fast… more tech­ni­cal, with more pass­ing and move­ment.

The Ar­gen­tine cap­tain will like­ly ad­just, and whether he suc­ceeds or not, one im­por­tant ar­gu­ment is al­ready set­tled. For­mer Eng­land cap­tain Gary Linek­er said on his pod­cast “The Rest is Foot­ball” that Mes­si un­der­lined his sta­tus as foot­ball’s GOAT – Great­est of All Time. Linek­er played against Diego Maradona and does not stop talk­ing about his ab­surd skill lev­el. He said it be­fore, and again. Mes­si has sur­passed Maradona and the great Pelé.

An Eng­land-Ar­genti­na matchup was bound to in­voke his­to­ry, and it did. The Falk­lands. Las Malv­inas. Their 1982 war in the South At­lantic. Maradona’s 1986 “hand of God” goal in Mex­i­co City. Ar­gen­tine play­ers cel­e­brat­ed on the pitch with a large ban­ner pro­claim­ing Ar­gen­tine sov­er­eign­ty over the is­lands. Some par­tic­i­pat­ing play­ers, such as goal-scor­er Fer­nan­dez and Lisan­dro Mar­tinez, play for Eng­lish clubs.

A good pro­por­tion of the UK press’s analy­sis of the game was crit­i­cal of Eng­land’s Ger­man coach, Thomas Tuchel. He went on lock­down de­fence too ear­ly, was one wide­ly held view. It’s mis­placed for two rea­sons. One, in the 17 min­utes be­tween the goal and the first lock­down sub­sti­tu­tion, Ar­genti­na had 88 per cent pos­ses­sion. Eng­land couldn’t get out of their third.

Two, Li­onel Mes­si. Britain’s Eng­land-sup­port­ing press suf­fers from Car­ly Si­mon syn­drome. They think the song is about them. It isn’t. If on­ly Eng­land coach Thomas Tuchel had or hadn’t made this or that change, they ar­gued pas­sion­ate­ly and at length...

UK press cov­er­age of big sports events reg­u­lar­ly starts with the propo­si­tion that Eng­land/Britain would have won if they hadn’t made mis­takes. Re­porters of­ten fail to recog­nise the ar­gu­ments/mer­its of the oth­er pro­tag­o­nist. On Wednes­day, it took two to tan­go, and Ar­genti­na (who else?) were bet­ter at it. There was noth­ing that Tuchel could do once the GOAT de­cid­ed to im­pose his will on the game and his lead­er­ship on his team­mates.

Mean­while, as foot­ball’s GOAT pre­pared for his date with his­to­ry, the man wide­ly ac­knowl­edged as the GOAT of crick­et died at the age of 89. In 160 test in­nings over 93 tests, Gar­ry Sobers failed to make it to 90 on­ly five times af­ter pass­ing 80 runs. On Fri­day, Sir Garfield Sobers was giv­en out, 11 days short of his 90th birth­day.

In most con­tests, Sobers could bat bet­ter than the best bats­man, bowl bet­ter than the best bowler (fast-medi­um, swing/seam and two types of spin), and was the best field­er on the park. He’s ac­knowl­edged up and down the crick­et­ing world to be the best-ever all-rounder – but if he’d nev­er bowled a ball in his life, he’d still be in the con­ver­sa­tion for the best bats­man of all time.

Sir Garfield, the great Bar­ba­di­an, was one of the most il­lus­tri­ous sons of the Caribbean.