For the first time in his career, Lionel Messi, the Argentine legend, will face the England national team in the World Cup semi-final on Wednesday.

This anticipated meeting comes after nearly two decades without any friendly or official match between the two teams, as Messi has never faced the English side in any previous game.

The English radio station talkSPORT reminded fans of a friendly match between England and Argentina in 2005, from which Lionel Messi was absent due to his poor start with the 'Tango dancers'.

Messi made his international debut for Argentina in a friendly against Hungary in August 2005, but was sent off just 47 seconds after coming on, forcing him to miss the next friendly match in November of the same year.

Messi sprinted moments after entering, trying to dribble past Hungarian players, but he committed a foul on Vilmos Vanczák, who was about to stop him, and was immediately sent off in a bizarre scenario.

Max Scott of talkSPORT described Messi's red card as a harsh decision, noting that it deprived fans of seeing him in the friendly match three months later, which England won 3-2.

Regarding the lack of another match between the two teams, Scott said: 'England has not scheduled any other friendly against Argentina since then, and there is a valid explanation for that, especially in recent years.'

He explained: 'Since Argentina won the World Cup, they have become one of the most profitable national teams in the world; therefore, the English Football Association decided it would not pay a large sum to arrange a friendly against them.'

Messi has played 205 matches for Argentina, scoring 125 goals and providing 64 assists.

The incident of Messi's rapid sending off against Hungary remains one of the strangest moments of his career, as 47 seconds prevented him from participating in a long-awaited match against England. Although Messi later became Argentina's all-time top scorer with 125 goals in 205 matches, the international match schedule has not pitted him against England since then, due to the financial obstacles mentioned by the English FA after Argentina's World Cup triumph.