PARIS, July 25, 2024 - The clock is ticking. The game is almost over. The ecstatic French fans, 80,000 or so, start the countdown. Stade de France roars. As captain Antoine Dupont grabs the ball to take the penalty, France are literally seconds away from beating Argentina 21-14. 

Cinq! Quatre! Trois! 

But Dupont doesn’t want this to end, so he pretends to pass it to his right and instead goes forward, breaking Argentina’s defence. With the clock in 0:00, he runs unchallenged, yelling in ecstasy. Twenty steps to fly and take his team to the semi-finals.  

26-14 - There’s only one Argentinian that reacts quickly enough to try to stop him. Rodrigo Isgro realises and tries to cut back in another amazing diagonal run. His effort will not be enough to prevent Dupont from landing with the ball in Argentina’s ingoal.

Isgro arrives one second too late. Instead of stopping him, he is caught up in the middle of the celebrations. No other Argentinian is close. It’s one against seven, with the French substitutes eager to join soon. Dupont yells and celebrates almost in his face. 

UNNECESARY TENSION It’s going to be the end of a tense night and an even tenser atmosphere between Argentina and France, that started in the World Cup 2022 final, resumed 11 days ago with the racist song that Enzo Fernandez streamed live during the Copa America celebrations, and exploded with the political involvement of Argentinian and French politicians, taking the tension to a different level. 

FOOTBALL SCANDAL The start of the Olympic adventure wasn’t a happier one, either, with Argentina’s national anthem jeered in Morocco-Argentina, a game that was interrupted 7 times, suspended for pitch invasion and crowd violence, and resumed two hours later to disallow Argentina’s equaliser. The news of a robbery to Thiago Almada while Argentina were training added more fuel to the fire, with plenty of conspiracy theories and fake news spiralling. 

KEY MOMENT And here we are, back on the game, at 21:53, with Dupont celebrating in Isgro’s face and two countries eager to know if something will happen. But Isgro, who is returning today after a five-match suspension for an action precisely against France, patiently waits, his right hand open. It takes several seconds for the French players to notice him, and a couple of more seconds to accept the handshake. Dupont was the first one.

With two countries eager to escalate the conflict with any sporting spark, Isgro’s handshake, unnoticed to most of the present, not shown on live coverage, should not only be praised but valued. 

His handshake, which will not go viral on social media, showed the beauty of the Olympic movement.

“Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, but right now, let me enjoy, we’ve represented our clubs, our families, our country, and we might not get a medal but we are not just done yet,” said Isgro, the player of the non-viral, unnoticed handshake that prevented a diplomatic conflict.