Anderson is the answer. Messi, for all his gift, only has a certain amount of running steps in those aged legs and if he has a pretty dynamic man-marker who doesn't lunge in and end up on the deck as he skips over and drives him wide or backwards we can possibly deal with him. He plays a distinct inverted nine these days and runs at defences daring them to gamble on the tackle. The defence do not need to be bamboozled by his deftness and prevent themselves ball watching because he will be in and on goal withing three short passes. Stop the cross, stop the one-twos, drive him away from goal and stop him shooting from the 20 yard mark. Anderson needs to be on him all match and not let him get more than a metre from his position.
We also need to not play pretty football playing it out from the back but 'gerrit forrad' and play in their half. Argentina have an unbearable habit of scoring goals from nowhere, and we don't half throw the dice passing it out of defence.
The nice problem to have is being in a WC semi final against Messi and wondering how to deal with his ability. Something that amazed me is that he said in the last couple of days that he's not faced England before even though he's been around so long. He said:
"Obviously, playing against England is special because they are a powerhouse, and matches against powerhouses are always special,"
he told ESPN. "Personally, it's the first time I'm going to play against them. I've played against everyone except England, so it will be nice for that reason too."
205 games, his Argentina debut in 2005 v Hungary in a friendly, 17th August, he then played in Argentina's competitive games against Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay. Not sure why, perhaps through injury, but he missed the England friendly on 12th November, before playing against Qatar four days later on 16th November 2005. We haven't played Argentina since.
When you watch Messi, and it has been mention a few times by pundits and stats, like Haaland, he walks around a lot, looking uninterested and often out of the game, letting his team mates do the leg work. But its in those moments when he see's a passage of play 2-3 passes ahead that he then makes his move and finds space to receive the ball to either pick a killer pass or to bag a goal. It feels like he's come from nowhere. Kane and Bellingham can also do it but they put the running in as well.
Its this though which makes me torn about man marking him because it would take a player like Anderson out of the organised midfield to then effectively walk around with his Dad for most of the game. The alternative is to leave him alone until he comes into a danger area and then pick him up, which given England's sloppy defending at times against Norway and Ghana, its also not favourable.
I think though that you're right about being more direct. Getting the ball out to Saka and Gordon has been our real strength and retaining possession for long periods in the final third hasn't been effective for many teams. Ourselves, Spain, Argentina and even France have been frustrated in games in this way, but retaining the ball is far less tiring than chasing players, so it does make sense. Against Mexico we became the counter attacking side.
If we can absorb periods of pressure without the ball, then play the counter attacks again which have proved to work with Kane being the target and Bellingham arriving just in time, its got to give us that chance.
We need to put in the Mexico performance again rather than Norway.
