Defending champion Argentina reaches World Cup final by beating England 2-1

De­fend­ing cham­pi­on Ar­genti­na ral­lied to beat Eng­land 2-1 on Wednes­day and reach the World Cup fi­nal.

Trail­ing 1-0 go­ing in­to the last five min­utes of reg­u­la­tion time, En­zo Fer­nan­dez and sub­sti­tute Lau­taro Mar­tinez scored for Ar­genti­na.

An­tho­ny Gor­don had giv­en Eng­land the lead, but Li­onel Mes­si and Co. had oth­er ideas.

Ar­genti­na pushed for an equal­iz­er and the pres­sure even­tu­al­ly led to Fer­nan­dez scor­ing in the 85th minute. Mar­tinez head­ed in the win­ner two min­utes in­to in­jury time.

The game re­sumed one of the biggest ri­val­ries in in­ter­na­tion­al soc­cer and there was a rau­cous at­mos­phere in the sta­di­um even be­fore kick­off as both sets of fans tried to drown out the oth­er team’s na­tion­al an­them.

Ar­genti­na will play Spain in the World Cup fi­nal on Sun­day in East Ruther­ford, New Jer­sey.