The Match Was Almost Over. Argentina Wasn't.
What a World Cup semifinal taught us about effort, faith and the final minutes of life!
For most of the evening, Argentina kept meeting the same answer.
No.
A shot was saved. Another was pushed away. Alexis Mac Allister struck the post twice. England’s goalkeeper, Jordan Pickford, seemed to grow larger with every passing minute. England had taken the lead through Anthony Gordon, and as the clock moved towards full-time, Argentina’s dream appeared to be quietly slipping away.
Yet something in them refused to accept that the present score was the final truth.
They kept returning.
This is harder than it sounds. We admire perseverance when it finally succeeds, but rarely speak about how lonely it feels before success arrives. There is a moment when repeated effort begins to look foolish—even to us. After enough rejection, the mind starts whispering: “Perhaps this is not meant for you.”
We know that feeling beyond football.
A student fails an examination and begins to doubt his intelligence. A patient sees little improvement and loses faith in treatment. A writer receives another rejection. A prayer remains unanswered. Slowly, one disappointing moment begins to define the whole person.
Argentina could have allowed every save to become a verdict. Instead, they treated it as an invitation to begin again.
In the 85th minute, Lionel Messi worked a short corner and found Enzo Fernández, whose strike finally broke through. Then, deep into stoppage time, Messi sent in a cross and Lautaro Martínez headed Argentina into the final.
Two goals arrived when time seemed to have finished.
The Gita was also spoken at a moment when a person believed he could go no further. Arjuna stood between two armies, overwhelmed not by lack of strength, but by the collapse of certainty. Krishna did not promise him an easy victory. He asked him to act fully without demanding that the future obey his wishes.
That is the heart of karma yoga : not indifference to results, but freedom from being paralysed by them.
The Gita also speaks of steady determination—the quiet strength that holds the mind together when circumstances repeatedly say no. Such determination does not always look heroic. Sometimes it is simply taking the next shot after the last one hit the post.
For most of the evening, Argentina kept meeting the same answer.
No.
A shot was saved. Another was pushed away. Alexis Mac Allister struck the post twice. England’s goalkeeper, Jordan Pickford, seemed to grow larger with every passing minute. England had taken the lead through Anthony Gordon, and as the clock moved towards full-time, Argentina’s dream appeared to be quietly slipping away.
Yet something in them refused to accept that the present score was the final truth.
They kept returning.
This is harder than it sounds. We admire perseverance when it finally succeeds, but rarely speak about how lonely it feels before success arrives. There is a moment when repeated effort begins to look foolish—even to us. After enough rejection, the mind starts whispering: “Perhaps this is not meant for you.”
We know that feeling beyond football.
A student fails an examination and begins to doubt his intelligence. A patient sees little improvement and loses faith in treatment. A writer receives another rejection. A prayer remains unanswered. Slowly, one disappointing moment begins to define the whole person.
Argentina could have allowed every save to become a verdict. Instead, they treated it as an invitation to begin again.
In the 85th minute, Lionel Messi worked a short corner and found Enzo Fernández, whose strike finally broke through. Then, deep into stoppage time, Messi sent in a cross and Lautaro Martínez headed Argentina into the final.
Two goals arrived when time seemed to have finished.
The Gita was also spoken at a moment when a person believed he could go no further. Arjuna stood between two armies, overwhelmed not by lack of strength, but by the collapse of certainty. Krishna did not promise him an easy victory. He asked him to act fully without demanding that the future obey his wishes.
That is the heart of karma yoga : not indifference to results, but freedom from being paralysed by them.
The Gita also speaks of steady determination—the quiet strength that holds the mind together when circumstances repeatedly say no. Such determination does not always look heroic. Sometimes it is simply taking the next shot after the last one hit the post.
Next Story