{"id":204236,"date":"2026-07-13T20:55:38","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T20:55:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tahrir2day.com\/news\/2026\/07\/13\/chance-to-face-messi-once-in-a-lifetime-oreilly\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T20:55:38","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T20:55:38","slug":"chance-to-face-messi-once-in-a-lifetime-oreilly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tahrir2day.com\/news\/2026\/07\/13\/chance-to-face-messi-once-in-a-lifetime-oreilly\/","title":{"rendered":"Chance to face Messi once in a lifetime – O’Reilly"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

England left-back Nico O’Reilly is relishing the “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to face Lionel Messi in Wednesday’s World Cup semi-final against Argentina.<\/b><\/p>\n

Thomas Tuchel’s secured a place in the final four with a draining 2-1 win against Norway in the Miami heat on Saturday, and now face a match in Atlanta against the defending world champions, who saw off Switzerland 3-1.<\/p>\n

It will be the first time Messi has faced England, and at 39, it could be the last. Manchester City defender O’Reilly has never faced him at club level either.<\/p>\n

“I can’t wait,” O’Reilly, who will probably have to defend against Messi one-on-one if he starts at left-back, told BBC Radio 5 Live.<\/p>\n

“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. He’s coming towards the end of his career. For me personally, he’s the best player to ever touch a football pitch. And yeah, I can’t wait for the challenge.”<\/p>\n

Messi began the tournament with a hat-trick in a 3-0 win against Algeria as he became the all-time leading goalscorer in World Cup history, equalling Miroslav Klose’s record of 16, which had stood since 2014.<\/p>\n

The Argentina captain has since scored five more to take that record – his total of eight goals putting him joint-first with France’s Kylian Mbappe in the Golden Boot race, and taking his career World Cup tally to 21.<\/p>\n

While the eight-time Ballon d’Or winner is Argentina’s main threat, England goalkeeper Jordan Pickford warned against ignoring the other talents in Lionel Scaloni’s side.<\/p>\n

“He has scored so many goals and contributed to so many over his career. It’s great to finally come up against him after so long, and watching him as a kid,” Pickford told media at England’s training base in Kansas on Monday.<\/p>\n

“We all know how good Messi is but we also know how good Argentina are. We can’t solely rely on [stopping] Messi. We’ve got to focus on their other strengths and the weaknesses we can take advantage of.”<\/p>\n

The winner of the semi-final will face either France or Spain – who play each other on Tuesday (20:00 BST) – in the World Cup final at the New York New Jersey Stadium on Sunday, 19 July (20:00 BST).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

England left-back Nico O’Reilly is relishing the “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to face Lionel Messi in Wednesday’s World Cup semi-final against Argentina. Thomas Tuchel’s secured a place in the final four with a draining 2-1 win against Norway in the Miami heat on Saturday, and now face a match in Atlanta against the defending world champions, who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-204236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nChance to face Messi once in a lifetime - O'Reilly - Tahrir News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/tahrir2day.com\/news\/2026\/07\/13\/chance-to-face-messi-once-in-a-lifetime-oreilly\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Chance to face Messi once in a lifetime - O'Reilly\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"England left-back Nico O’Reilly is relishing the “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to face Lionel Messi in Wednesday’s World Cup semi-final against Argentina. 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