A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Argentina is back in the FIFA World Cup finals. If they beat Spain on Sunday, they'll be just the third team in men's history to win back-to-back titles. NPR's Becky Sullivan joins us now from Atlanta, where she watched Argentina's comeback win over England. My goodness...
BECKY SULLIVAN, BYLINE: True.
MARTÍNEZ: ...Becky. What a game.
SULLIVAN: I know. It was nuts. I mean, my ears, maybe, are still ringing. It was an incredible atmosphere in Mercedes-Benz Stadium, A. Sixty-eight thousand-plus fans pretty much on their feet all game long, just shouting, singing, like, cheering, whipping their jerseys around like towels, and just another incredible comeback for this Argentina team, which has some serious guts, I think.
And on the flip side, if you're an England fan, I think maybe your stomach is still tied up in knots over the way the team played, the way they were managed after they went ahead 1-0 about 10 minutes into the second half, after which Argentina went on a tear. And the two, of course, Lionel Messi crosses that led to both Argentina goals. What a heartbreaker for England, whose 60-year wait for another chance at the World Cup trophy must just extend even longer.
MARTÍNEZ: Becky, England was five minutes away.
SULLIVAN: So close.
MARTÍNEZ: Five minutes away, yeah.
SULLIVAN: I mean, yeah, they felt like - the players said afterward they felt like they had it in hands. They felt like they were going to the final because Argentina didn't score at all until the 85th minute, as you're saying. I mean, after the game, they had - the players just had these, like, thousand-yard stares on their faces. One that stuck with me was a reporter asked England defender Dan Burn about the mood in the locker room afterward. Was it emotional? Were people upset or were people just kind of silently in shock? And here's what he said to that.
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DAN BURN: A bit of both, really. Honestly, I was in shock at the end. I didn't really have a lot of emotion. I still feel pretty numb about it. Yeah. When you come within 15 minutes of a World Cup final, 1-0 up, I was so confident that we were going to see that out.
SULLIVAN: You know, England has gone out a lot like this recently. The last time they were in the World Cup semi-final was in 2018, and it was the same thing. They scored first and then they gave up two goals to lose. Similar stories in the Euros. I think it must just be really brutal to have it happen again.
MARTÍNEZ: So, Becky, Argentina - I am now renaming them. They are called to me Los Chicos Del Regreso - The Comeback Kids.
SULLIVAN: Yeah.
MARTÍNEZ: I mean, they've had some impressive games where they've come back.
SULLIVAN: I mean, yeah, like, I think some had really kind of almost criticized them, you could say, had pointed out, at least, that you - they had not faced very much top quality competition in this knockout round. Yet all of their knockout games had been nailbiters. I'll just list for you - I've written down, A, the minutes in which Argentina finally took the lead in each of their four knockout games.
In extra time against Cape Verde, 111th minute. Against Egypt, the second minute of stoppage time. In extra time, again, against Switzerland in the 112th minute. And then yesterday against England in the second minute of stoppage time again. And I think what's clear is that this is a team that truly believes they can never be counted out. They have the utmost confidence that even in the 85th minute, even past 90 minutes, that they still have a chance to win, and that confidence is a major thing to contend with, I think, as an opponent.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. Los Chicos Del Regreso - I think it's going to stick. All right. So give us a preview of the matchup with Spain.
SULLIVAN: Yeah. So, yeah. So Spain, this is the matchup for Sunday's final. Spain had a much tougher road, I think, to get to this point, in terms of the strength of their opponents. And so they also have an extra day of rest now because they played on Tuesday. They've already beaten three top 10 teams - Portugal, Belgium and France. For Argentina, England was the first top 10 team they had faced.
And so, you know - and Spain in the whole World Cup has just conceded a single goal, and so I think that is going to be a big challenge for Argentina, who as we heard, hasn't had the lead in any of these knockout games when the clock hit 90 minutes. And so I think it's hard to predict anything in the World Cup, A, except that it's going to be very fun to be there.
MARTÍNEZ: And you're going to be there. NPR's Becky Sullivan. Thanks a lot.
SULLIVAN: You're welcome.
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