Lisandro Martínez scored at both ends of normal time, Messi opened the scoring, and it still took an own goal in the 111th minute for Argentina to see off Cape Verde Islands at Hard Rock Stadium. The world champions got there in the end, 3-2 after extra time, but they were made to work for every inch of it.
Messi settled things early enough that Argentina looked set for a comfortable evening. The 29th-minute opener, assisted by Lisandro Martínez, was the kind of moment this tournament has been built around: the No. 10 converting in a match where his side had 64 per cent of the ball and fashioned 22 shots. Cape Verde sat deep in their 4-1-4-1, goalkeeper Vozinha sharp behind them, and Argentina's volume of possession rarely translated into genuine threat until Messi made it count.
The second half changed the picture entirely. Deroy Duarte, fed by Ryan Mendes, equalised on 59 minutes, and suddenly Cape Verde's expected goals figure of 0.36 looked like a gross undervaluation of their ambition. They had eight shots saved by Emiliano Martínez across the 121 minutes, which is worth sitting with: a side ranked far below Argentina produced five shots on target and made the reigning champions look fragile at the back.
Argentina thought they had won it in stoppage time. Lisandro Martínez, so important all evening, converted from an Alexis Mac Allister assist in the 92nd minute to make it 2-1. The celebration was brief. Sidny Lopes Cabral, picked out by substitute Yannick Semedo, equalised in the 103rd minute of extra time to send the game on again.
It was left to the defender Diney Borges to settle it, albeit not in the way he would have chosen: his own goal in the 111th minute, with no assist recorded, ended Cape Verde's resistance and Argentina's nerves simultaneously. The scoreline said 3-2; the facts said this was considerably closer to the wire than any world champion would accept.
Argentina's statistical dominance was real enough. Eight corners to seven, 843 passes to 466, 92 per cent passing accuracy. But Cape Verde's 86 per cent accuracy with roughly half as many passes reflected a side that moved the ball with purpose when it had it. Pedro Leitao Brito's team did not come to sit and suffer; they came to play on the counter and they very nearly pulled it off.
Scaloni's use of substitutes complicated the evening rather than settled it. Julián Alvarez and Nicolás González both played little more than an hour without adding to the scoreline. Gonzalo Montiel, on for just 17 minutes, picked up a yellow card. None of the attacking reinforcements imposed themselves the way the lineup demanded.
The centre-back Lisandro Martínez will rightly take the headlines, a goal and an assist in a man-of-the-match performance that also included everything you would want from a defender across 121 minutes. Without him, Argentina would have been out. The rest of the squad would do well to remember that when they reflect on this result.
Cape Verde travel home with nothing but a performance that should have earned more. Vozinha was exceptional between the posts, Deroy Duarte and Sidny Lopes Cabral both scored, and they pushed the world champions to the edge of a penalty shootout. In a tournament context, there is no consolation prize for that. But there is a record, and it reads better than the outcome.