Argentina v. England: What Their World Cup Basecamps In Kansas City Tell Us About This Match Up
Profoundly Different Approaches: The Messi Panathenaia vs. The Tuchel Monk's House Retreat
Both Argentina and England are basecamped here in Kansas City. I’ve seen both experiences up close, so here’s some impressions and a tea-leaves reading on tomorrow’s game.
No time to go into the epic history here: 1960, the Falkland Islands War, the Hand of God, etc. This is simply the biggest matchup the tournament could conspire for a place in the World Cup final.
The Argentina basecamp hotel is the Origin Hotel on the Riverfront, next to the Kansas City Current stadium. They turned the hotel into a god-like shrine to Messi. Facing the street, there’s a hotel-length draping of Messi on the left, and a hotel-length draping of Messi on the right. In the middle, a draping with a much smaller group photo of Team Argentina.
This, my friends, is a metaphor for Argentina’s entire approach to this tournament. The major question going into the tournament was, can Messi carry this team again? There was never any question of a succession: The psychological and spiritual space Messi occupies in the Argentinian imagination sits comfortably alongside not just Maradona, but Jose de San Martin.
When Messi put up a hat trick in the opening game against Algeria in the first game (which I watched from Algeria’s home base in Lawrence, where we immediately recognized that Messi should have been red carded), the narrative was set for this campaign: Everything Argentina does is designed to create Messi Magic. No matter how little he runs, no matter how little width Argentina’s wingers generate, it’s going to be Messi. There is no succession crisis as long as the aging king still rules.
Messi and Argentina’s group phase dominance has slowed considerably in the knockouts: two controversial near-misses against Cape Verde and Egypt, bailed out in part by Messi Magic, and a dodgy red card against the Swiss led to a Julian Alvarez goal when, really, the Swiss had taken over the game before the red and looked comfortable down a man to get to penalties.
So that’s Argentina, like it is on their hotel: The entire enterprise dedicated to the worship of their icon. As the tournament has worn on, watching Messi is like imagining an aging Hermes with winged sandals showing an increasing amount of rust.
England, on the other hands, is ensconced in Meadowbrook Park, a former country club now suburban park in Prairie Village, Kansas. The Inn at Meadowbrook is surrounded by a couple ponds the remind me of the bathing ponds in Hampstead Heath, and they built something like a British Bake Off tent behind the building.
Except for some concrete barricades, some PV cops scrolling their phones, and a makeshift lift gate, you would not know that the England National Football Team is here. You would not know that Thomas Tuchel is inside this inn where I sometimes get gelato, sketching contingencies for whatever challenges the next round encounters. You would not know that Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham and key pieces of the Arsenal team are here.
It’s a profoundly......weird thing to witness. In one part of the city, Argentina fans have come in overwhelming hordes not just for the games, but to worship at the shrine of Messi. To be clear, they rock and their presence has helped make this whole experience for Kansas City. We owe them a debt of gratitude for showing out in our city. According to actual news reports in the actual Kansas City Star, KC singles are hooking up at legendary rates, with a “preference for Argentinians.”
England? They’re on a writer’s holiday in an English garden away from all distractions, where they can shut away from the world and concentrate on finally finishing this manuscript before the deadline. It’s a completely different experience.
England is doing yoga with residents. They bought a pool table on Next Door. They are riding bikes around the ponds.
If you understand the history of the England National Team, this seems to be entirely by design. Long gone are the days of Beckham and the WAGs, Wayne Rooney’s wife suing Jaime Vardy’s wife in the Wagatha Christie Trial. England has had no games in Kansas City, so unlike Argentina, there’s virtually no English supporter presence here. Argentina’s presence has felt more like a month long Jubilee devoted to a beloved monarch than what England is doing.
For me, this seems very Thomas Tuchel, the German coach who wins things: the defeater of Pep Guardiola in the Champions League, a man who revels in the *campaign* of tournament football. Meadowbrook and their training facility, Swope Soccer Village in Swope Park (where my daughter and her buddies play youth ball!), weren’t even on offer by Kansas City for basecamps. But England saw these locations, and I believe they recognized an opportunity to shut one of the most heavily scrutinized teams in the world, followed by one of the most toxic sports media in the world, away from all that. They’re on retreat.
This is why, in a tournament where fine margins make the difference at crucial moments, I’m picking England over Argentina.
This World Cup requires more logistics by the country’s football federations than any in history: The newly extended 48 team World Cup expanded over three of the largest countries in the world requiring more travel, more preparation, and more management of the experience than anything we’ve ever seen in team sports.
From what I’ve seen on the ground, England has managed the experience to prepare the team precisely for this moment. Argentina, I’m not so sure.
I’m not saying Argentina won’t be prepared: They chose perhaps the best training facility in the country in Sporting KC’s, and they just played their quarterfinal here with no travel in what was essentially a home game. There’s no evidence that the Argentina banderazos in KC has been distracting for the team.
Still, soccer-wise, there are serious flaws with this team at the back, out wide, and it seems spiritually devoted to the worship of a man who is 39 years old at the business end of the most grueling tournament ever endured by athletes at this level. Unless a successor steps up (as happened against the hard-done Swiss), their plan is Messi Magic.
England, by contrast, has managed this World Cup experience in exacting, precise detail--designed to bring calm, focus, and preparation to the campaign. You can see this in Tuchel’s roster construction: Every selection feels intentional to solve a problem that might arise in a specific situation somewhere along the way. Dan Burn at the Azteca. Marcus Rashford on the left wing to break down a low block. Similarly, I feel like the English FA curated their entire Kansas City / Prairie Village experience to ready themselves for this moment.
The morning after the legendary game in the Azteca, where England survived the altitude, the smog, the heat, and the single most raucous home field advantage in sports to defeat Mexico: I had a coffee in Prairie Village, so I drove by The Inn at Meadowbrook because I was curious about how, exactly, England was coping with what billions of people watched just 12 hours before---a herculean effort of mental toughness, physical endurance, and thundering Dan Burn headers of every Mexican cross into the box.
They got on the plane in Mexico City immediately, flew to KCI, arrived back the Inn at 6:30am. About 12:30pm, some players emerged from the Inn, said hey to the dozen or so people standing outside. A juice company brought the recovery drinks with ginger to reduce inflammation. A local specialized meat place showed up with the protein. For the next 36 hours, they got on bikes and rode around the park. Some went to the Meadowbrook pool. Ollie Watkins and his wife took the kids to LegoLand. It was all recovering in the park and around the city, later sharing a meal and, I’d like to think, several moments of just looking at each other and saying, “Can you believe we did that last night?” in the tent by the ponds. That’s where the belief sets in.
That’s why I wasn’t surprised at all when England went into the heat of Miami and didn’t play great, but survived against a solid Norway team in conditions so treacherous that the Viking God Erling Haaland had to sub off. They were ready.
Maybe all this matters and maybe it doesn’t, and you can’t discount the Messi Magic. But from what I’ve seen here in Kansas City, the Argentina camp has been a glorious Panathenaia where the Albicelestes have gathered to celebrate their football god. England is on a writer’s retreat, more like Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group at Monk’s House in East Sussex struggling to finish a masterpiece.
International football is about individual moments of magic, and Argentina has Messi and some guys who seem to be serving Messi. England has Jude Bellingham and Harry Kane---and a sense of purpose with a coach who wants to be decisive in big moments, who has a script developed in the quiet calm of Meadowbrook Park.
I’m going with England, 2-1 in extra time. They may be more prepared, come what may, in the additional 30 minutes. The English FA gave the players a space to believe that football is coming home.
