India, July 14 -- There are bigger football rivalries and more frequent ones. Perhaps, even fiercer local derbies. But no game has accumulated as much political baggage, sporting mythology and emotional residue as an England-Argentina World Cup fixture.

Its roots stretch beyond football. The failed British invasions of Rio de la Plata in 1806 and 1807, followed nearly two centuries later by the Falklands War in 1982, ensured that every meeting between the two nations was more than just a game.

Add football's capacity for producing unforgettable drama and the result is what many describe as the World Cup's only true trans-continental derby. Across five meetings, there have been three English victories and two for Argentina -- one of them...