ESPN’s Taylor Twellman on Argentina’s Latest “Crazy!” World Cup Rally

Taylor Twellman covers this sport for a living and he still cannot account for what Argentina keeps doing.

"How do they keep doing it?" Rich asked. The answer from ESPN's Twellman was refreshingly honest. "I don't know, Rich. I really don't."

Then he laid out the detail that makes it absurd. In the knockout stage, Argentina has not led after 90 minutes. Not once. The game-winning goals keep arriving after the 92nd minute, and the volume of goals this team has scored after the 75th minute in this World Cup is, in Twellman's word, crazy.

His explanation is not tactical. It is atmospheric.

"There's just an extra 5% Rich that you cannot measure. You cannot quantify when you play with the greatest of all time," Twellman said. He has watched the same thing during Messi's time with Inter Miami and across three or four years of Argentina in World Cup qualifying. There is an extra bit of energy, an extra bit of belief, and no way to put a number on it.

"You have to play an absolute perfect 90-plus minutes to knock them out," he said. "The belief they have with number 10 on their side, it's very difficult for me to articulate, for me to quantify."

Rich wanted to linger on the cross, the right-footed ball Messi hit over a wall of English defenders. Rich counted six. Twellman corrected him upward.

"Seven," Twellman said, and then explained why. He had posted the still frame on his social media, the image from the instant before contact. Just inside the 18, there are seven English defenders, Jordan Pickford, and four attacking players from Argentina.

"Everyone and their mother thinks he's going to his left foot," Twellman said, "and he delivers a ball over the head of John Stones, if I'm not mistaken in the picture, on an absolute dime. For any attacking player, it's a dream ball, easy finish."

The part that stung for England is that the whole sequence was invited. Twellman did not soften it. "You literally played into the hands of Lionel Messi." Messi sold the inswinging ball to his left, went right instead, away from Pickford, and caught everyone by surprise.

Two assists. Two completely different goals. One comeback, and an English side sitting there with their heads buried in their hands.

Twellman's closing line was the one that puts the whole thing in context, and it was not about this match at all. Messi has over 800 assists in his career.

"You see why," he said.