Our captain played 90 minutes of the entertaining clash in Atlanta before being substituted for Nicolas Otamendi after Enzo Fernandez’s injury-time winner, while fellow defender Marcos Senesi was an unused substitute.
Argentina trailed the Egyptians 2-0 with 11 minutes to go, but on his 55th appearance for his country, Cuti rose to meet Lionel Messi’s cross from the right-hand side and head past goalkeeper Mostafa Shobeir, six minutes before Messi levelled proceedings and 13 minutes before Fernandez headed home the stoppage-time winner that completed a remarkable comeback win.
Hossem Hassan’s Pharaohs took the lead early against the reigning champions through defender Yasser Ibrahim, who headed in a deep delivery from Marwan Ateya inside 15 minutes.
It looked as if that lead might have been short-lived initially as four minutes after going behind, Argentina were awarded a penalty after a foul from winger Haissem Hassan on Lyon left back Nicolas Tagliafico. Shobeir guessed the right way, however, and saved Messi's 21st-minute effort from the spot to keep Egypt in front.
Hassan’s side, who went into the break with a 1-0 lead, had the ball in the net again in the 58th minute through their striker Mostafa Ziko after a well-crafted counter-attack by winger Hassan and talisman Mohammed Salah allowed Zico to poke past Emiliano Martinez in the Argentina goal, but the goal was later disallowed after VAR had ruled that Ateya had fouled Lisandro Martinez before the Egypt breakaway.
It wasn’t long before the Egyptians had their second, though, as nine minutes after finding the net before the VAR cancellation, Ziko arrived in the box to strike Hassan’s cutback into the roof of the net.
As the threat of the incumbent world champions heading out at the Round of 16 stage grew larger, our number 17 pushed further forward to try and produce a late spark and a way back into the match, which presented itself with 11 minutes to go when he was the target of a left-footed Messi cross which travelled over the head of Rami Rabia and right in front of our captain to halve the deficit.
After providing Cuti with Argentina’s first, their playmaker scored a goal of his own to level proceedings with six minutes to play, volleying towards Shobeir, who could only parry the strike onto the crossbar before the ball made its way into the net.
Having been pegged back level, Egypt committed bodies forward in search of a late winner and were caught on the break in the second of the seven minutes of stoppage time awarded, with Julian Alvarez and Lautaro Martinez combining to break apart the Pharaohs’ defence, before the Inter forward delivered a ball into a nearly empty penalty area for Chelsea’s Fernandez to head home.
Next up for Cuti, Marcos, and their teammates is a quarter-final in the early hours of Sunday morning (12 July, 2am BST) against the winners of the final Round of 16 clash between Switzerland and Colombia, which is at 9pm (BST) this evening.
