Bellingham twice, Álvarez from the clouds: England and Argentina are through

Four matches. Four days. Eight teams reduced to four. The 2026 World Cup quarterfinals finished on Saturday night in Kansas City with defending champions Argentina through to another semi-final and England alongside them after a draining, controversial, ultimately thrilling afternoon in Miami. France and Spain were already waiting. The final four happen to be the top four ranked nations on earth. Nobody planned it that way. Nobody is complaining.

Norway 1 — England 2 AET | Hard Rock Stadium, Miami

Schjelderup 36'; Bellingham 45+2', 93'

For 28 minutes this quarterfinal refused to produce a shot. Harry Kane tried to break the impasse with a free kick in the 29th minute and put it over the bar. The longest a match had gone without a single attempt at goal in this entire tournament, and the first shot missed. It told you about the mutual respect both sets of players carried into the contest, the weight of what was at stake, and the particular tension that a World Cup quarterfinal between two sides who have studied each other carefully tends to generate.

Andreas Schjelderup dissolved that tension in the 36th minute without fully meaning to. The 22-year-old, making only his second start of this World Cup, received the ball on the left and drove inside toward the penalty area. His intention appeared to be a delivery to Haaland at the far post. What happened instead was that the ball took the inside of the right post and curled behind Jordan Pickford. Norway led by a goal they had not quite manufactured, and Hard Rock Stadium was deafening.

England's equaliser arrived in the last seconds of the first half and carries a question it is unlikely to receive a clean answer to. A Norway goal kick sent the ball into the air, and replays clearly showed it making contact with one of the spider-cam cables strung above the pitch before dropping to Elliot Anderson's feet. The laws of the game require play to be stopped for a drop ball in those circumstances. Nothing was stopped. Anderson found Bellingham, Bellingham shifted the ball onto his left foot, and drove a low finish to the far post that gave Nyland no chance. The cable contact went unseen by every official. England were level and, at that moment, fortunate.

The second half of normal time was controlled by a VAR decision that went Norway's way and one that went England's way, both of which altered the shape of what followed. Torbjørn Heggem put a rebound past Pickford in the 56th minute after a corner produced chaos in the England box. The celebration had barely started when the video officials identified a Haaland foul on Anderson in the build-up, before the corner was even taken. The goal came off the board. Then, late in extra time, Spence went down in the Switzerland box under minimal contact and England appealed loudly for a penalty. VAR looked at it and found nothing. The decisions balanced each other across the match without resolving it.

What resolved it was Morgan Rogers.

The Aston Villa midfielder came on as a substitute in the 89th minute and drove a long-range shot at Nyland in the 93rd — three minutes into the first period of extra time — that the Norwegian keeper got both hands to and dropped directly in front of an onrushing Bellingham. The finish was instinctive, close-range, and put England 2–1 ahead at the moment it mattered most. Solbakken had taken Haaland off at half-time in extra time, a decision that raised every eyebrow in the stadium and on the commentary platforms simultaneously. Whether a fit, fresh Haaland at that specific moment would have changed the outcome is unanswerable. He had been kept off the scoresheet for the first time in a competitive international in 636 days and was visibly tired. Solbakken made the call and had to live with it.

England held out for ten minutes of sustained Norwegian pressure and a Saka chance at the other end that Nyland gathered without difficulty. The final whistle sent them to Atlanta.

Bellingham's double makes him the first player since Diego Maradona at the 1986 World Cup to score twice in consecutive knockout stage appearances at the same tournament — Maradona did it against England and then Belgium forty years ago. He has now scored six goals at this World Cup from open play, none of them penalties, equalling Gary Lineker's record as the most non-penalty goals by an England player in a major tournament. He is 23 years old.

Pickford played his 18th World Cup match, one more than Peter Shilton, and is now England's outright record holder for appearances at the tournament. Kane played his 120th international, level with Wayne Rooney for the second-most caps in England history. Neither of those milestones mattered as much as the scoreline.

Norway go home. They eliminated Brazil in New Jersey, they brought the Viking row to a global audience that responded with genuine delight, and they took England to 93 minutes of extra time with ten men before it ended. Schjelderup, a 22-year-old who barely started this tournament, was the best player on the pitch for the first hour. Haaland was kept quiet by an England defence that committed completely to the task. The tournament is better for having had them in it.

Norway 1 (Schjelderup 36') defeated by England 2 AET (Bellingham 45+2', 93'). Hard Rock Stadium, Miami. 11 July 2026.

Argentina 3 — Switzerland 1 AET | Arrowhead Stadium, Kansas City

Mac Allister 10'; Ndoye 67'; Álvarez 112', Martínez 120+1'

This was the 100th match of the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Argentina chose to mark the occasion by making it as difficult for themselves as they possibly could before finding, as they have consistently found throughout this tournament, a way through.

Messi delivered a corner from the left in the tenth minute with the kind of weight and bend that requires a specific understanding of exactly where the runners are arriving. Alexis Mac Allister was arriving at the near post at the right moment, and his header went in. Switzerland had not trailed in 17 hours and ten minutes of competitive football across their qualification campaign and this tournament. Ten minutes in Kansas City ended that record.

For an hour it looked like a winning margin. Switzerland, under Murat Yakin, have been one of the tournament's most structured and pragmatic sides, and their organisation across the middle third gave Argentina limited opportunities to extend their lead. Messi went close on two occasions without converting. Lautaro Martínez worked hard in the channels without the service he needed. The Swiss were comfortable in a match they were losing.

Dan Ndoye changed that in the 67th minute. Arriving onto a ball at an angle that most forwards would look to cut back from, Ndoye took the shot on and curled it past Emiliano Martínez into the far corner. It was a technically demanding finish under pressure and he executed it cleanly. Switzerland were level, and with Yakin's defensive structure behind them, they looked well placed to take a fully fit Argentina into a penalty shootout.

Then Breel Embolo sat down.

What happened next was the match's pivot and its most contentious moment. Leandro Paredes challenged Embolo, who went to ground before the contact arrived. The referee showed Paredes yellow. VAR reviewed it and applied the mistaken identity protocol — only the second time this rule has been used at this World Cup — reversing Paredes' card, issuing Embolo a second yellow for simulation, and reducing Switzerland to ten men with 48 minutes of football still remaining.

The Swiss reorganised with the composure of a side that had prepared for this kind of adversity. They held a ten-man defensive shape through the rest of normal time in a manner that forced Argentina into shot after shot from distance without finding a way through. Messi came closest in stoppage time, jinking inside onto his right foot and curling a shot that drifted centimetres wide of the far post. Extra time arrived with Switzerland intact and Argentina increasingly frustrated.

The frustration lasted until the 112th minute.

Álvarez collected the ball 25 yards from goal, took one touch to set himself, and hit it. The technique was pure — struck low on the instep with his left foot, the ball bent away from Kobel and into the top corner before the goalkeeper had processed what was coming. There was a specific quality to the finish that separated it from the category of long-range efforts that go in through luck or deflection. Álvarez meant it and it went exactly where he intended. It was the goal of the quarterfinal round and one of the better strikes this tournament has produced.

Lautaro Martínez added a third in the final seconds of extra time after Almada's effort was parried into space, and Argentina's scoreline arrived at 3–1 — a margin that turned a difficult match into something that looked straightforward in the morning papers and was not straightforward at any point while it was being played.

Messi did not score on Saturday. He has eight goals in the tournament, level with Kylian Mbappé at the top of the Golden Boot standings. He provided the corner for the opening goal, created two clear chances for others, and was involved in every sustained period of Argentine pressure. The absence of a goal from his name on the scoresheet says less about his contribution than about the specific challenge Switzerland's defence posed to a central finisher operating in tight spaces.

Argentina face England in Atlanta on Wednesday. The last time these nations met at a World Cup, in Lusail in 2022, Argentina won on penalties after a 2–2 draw in normal and extra time. Both nations arrived at that match having endured difficult routes to the quarter-final. Both nations arrive at Wednesday having endured difficult routes to the semi-final. Some things about this fixture do not change.

Argentina 3 AET (Mac Allister 10', Álvarez 112', Martínez 120+1') defeated Switzerland 1 (Ndoye 67'). Arrowhead Stadium, Kansas City. 11 July 2026.

The semi-finals

France v Spain — AT&T Stadium, Arlington, Texas. Tuesday 14 July.
England v Argentina — Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Atlanta. Wednesday 15 July.