MIAMI GARDENS, Fla.—When the World Cup kicked off over a month ago, the gargantuan 48-team event was billed as the equivalent of 104 Super Bowls.
But it turns out this tournament has actually played out like another classic institution of American sports.
With Cinderella runs, a sprawling bracket, and survive-and-advance drama nearly every day, it’s clear that what we’ve really experienced is a summer version of March Madness. And this one has delivered an epic Final Four of blue bloods who have all proven they can go the distance: France, Spain, England, and Argentina.
Never before in the modern history of the World Cup have the top-four ranked teams in the world all reached the semifinals. It’s even more remarkable considering the fact that the largest ever field means that each have played an extra round. That’s one extra opportunity for a fluke, a referee’s decision, or a Cape Verde to break against them.
Led by Kylian Mbappé and his eight goals, Les Bleus have proven to the world that they have the most overpowering attack in soccer, with a suffocating defense to match—they haven’t conceded in any of the past three games. Spain, meanwhile, has allowed just one goal all tournament and proven that the guys it can bring off its bench are better than the starters on practically any other team in the world.
The other half of the bracket definitely won’t be mistaken for a chess match. This one is closer to a bout of no-holds-barred mud wrestling, with a side of psychological warfare.
England vs. Argentina is the latest installment in one of soccer’s most ferocious grudge matches, a cocktail of sporting controversy and colonial history that will be waged by two sides who have chaos-balled their way through the tournament, staggering from one opponent to the next while mixing brief moments of outrageous skill with long periods of absolute agony.
In the quarterfinals, both teams needed to survive nerve-shredding periods of extra time that could easily have sent them tumbling out of the tournament. England survived its clash with Norway with a virtuoso performance by its 23-year-old hotshot, Jude Bellingham. And Argentina advanced past Switzerland despite a quiet night from its 39-year-old genius in residence, Lionel Messi.
But ahead of the semifinal, all the talk will be about a different Argentina genius—the one whose “Hand of God” goal has gone unforgiven by England fans for 40 years, Diego Maradona.
But if Maradona was English soccer’s public enemy no. 1, his successor hasn’t had a chance to traumatize 60 million English men and women all at once. At least, not yet. In 20 years at the top of the game, Messi has never before faced the Three Lions. That will finally change on Wednesday in Atlanta.
“It is always special to play against the big teams,” Messi said. “It never happened to me against England, it’s the first time, so it’s going to be a special match, a World Cup semifinal.”
Write to Joshua Robinson at Joshua.Robinson@wsj.com and Jonathan Clegg at Jonathan.Clegg@wsj.com