Argentina staged one of the tournament’s most remarkable recoveries in Atlanta, overturning a two-goal deficit to beat Egypt 3-2 in the Round of 16. Yasser Ibrahim and Mostafa Ziko had given the Pharaohs a commanding lead, but Cristian Romero began the fightback before Lionel Messi equalised and Enzo Fernández struck a stoppage-time winner. The result extended the defending champions’ unbeaten World Cup run to 11 matches and kept alive their bid to become the first back-to-back winners since Brazil in 1962.

Within hours, the contest was engulfed by controversy. Egyptian head coach Hossam Hassan accused FIFA of manipulation, claiming the tournament wanted Messi to remain, while the Egyptian Football Association lodged a formal complaint demanding the permanent expulsion of French referee François Letexier. The grievances centred on a disallowed goal for Ziko after a VAR review for a foul on Lisandro Martínez and a waved-away penalty appeal when Mohamed Salah went down. In Cairo, the sense of injustice was amplified by social media narratives alleging a pattern of favouritism stretching back to Argentina’s 2022 triumph.

Speaking before the quarter-final against Switzerland, Lionel Scaloni dismissed the accusations as a recurring theme that predates his own tenure. “In ’86 they also said we were favoured,” he noted, referencing the Diego Maradona era. “It’s not something new.” The coach argued that VAR makes systematic bias impossible, pointing to the Martínez incident: “His foot was stepped on — a little, a lot or just a touch, it’s a foul. There is no other reading.” Scaloni said the criticism reaches the dressing room but is channelled into a “rebellion” that pushes his players to perform better. He also acknowledged a practical advantage: winning Group J meant Argentina avoided the cross-continent travel that would have come with a runners-up finish.

European voices offered public backing for the officiating. Spain manager Luis de la Fuente said he watched the match and believed the referee “got everything right”, while France’s Didier Deschamps expressed confidence in the officials and singled out Letexier’s performance. FIFA’s head of refereeing, Pierluigi Collina, had earlier defended the decisions as correct. These interventions did little to quiet the debate, but they underscored a divide in how the episode was interpreted in different football regions.

Argentina now face a Switzerland side that eliminated Colombia and are built around the experienced Granit Xhaka. Messi, tied on eight goals with Kylian Mbappé in the Golden Boot race, returns to the Arrowhead Stadium where he scored a hat-trick in the opening match. Scaloni confirmed he would not remove his captain from penalty duties despite two earlier misses, saying, “Let him do whatever he wants on the pitch.” The winner will meet England or Norway in the semi-finals.