We've had this one on the wall all week. England vs Argentina at a World Cup is the kind of fixture that doesn't need context for anyone who's ever cared about football, but the photography that has accumulated across six meetings and sixty years deserves to be looked at properly before Atlanta adds another chapter to it tonight.

It starts in 1966, though not in the way most people remember. Wembley Stadium. A quarterfinal that England won 1-0 but that Argentina left calling it el robo del siglo, the robbery of the century. Antonio Rattín refusing to leave the pitch after his red card and the images of him being escorted off by police, the fury visible in every frame.

The photographs from that afternoon don't look like football. They look like something else entirely.

Then Mexico City, 1986, the Azteca, and the two most famous minutes in World Cup history arriving four minutes apart.

Diego Maradona punching the ball past Peter Shilton with a hand the referee didn't see, then collecting the ball inside his own half and running through five England players to score what FIFA later named the Goal of the Century. 

The photographs of the first goal capture the exact moment football's greatest controversy was born. The photographs of the second capture something closer to genius. Both exist in the same match, in the same afternoon and in the same archive.

St Etienne, 1998. An eighteen-year-old Michael Owen running from halfway to score one of the greatest goals in England's history, then David Beckham on the ground after a clash with Diego Simeone, the red card arriving and the images of Beckham walking off that pitch that defined the next four years of his career and an entire era of English football.

Sapporo, 2002. Beckham stepping up to take the penalty that gave him back everything the St Etienne photographs had taken. The image of that celebration is one of the most complete expressions of relief ever caught on a football pitch. Six World Cup meetings. Not one of them has failed to give the cameras something worth keeping.

Tonight in Atlanta, Lionel Messi faces England at a World Cup for the first time. The archive is waiting. 

And in case you were wondering. Yes. It’s coming home. Of course.

Shot of the good stuff.