France and Argentina Meet in an Elite Battle for World Cup Survival

“The real World Cup starts now,” said Noël Le Graët, the president of the French Football Federation.

If so, it is about to end, too, for one of the game’s established powers, France or Argentina, as they face off here Saturday in the first match of the tournament’s round of 16 knockout stage.

The schedule did not leave Kazan’s civic leaders much time to have a large mural of the Argentine star Lionel Messi painted on the wall of a building near his team’s hotel. It was a fine diplomatic effort considering that Messi and his teammates could also have had a view of a nearby mural of Cristiano Ronaldo that was completed before he played here with Portugal in the 2017 Confederations Cup.

Messi had not been expected in Kazan, because Argentina was forecast to win Group D, which would have put it in Nizhny Novgorod for its first knockout game. (Croatia won the group and plays Denmark there Sunday.) Instead, Argentina barely managed to qualify for the knockout round, finishing second in its group with a 2-1 victory over Nigeria on Tuesday.

But the mural was completed by the time Messi and the Argentines arrived from Moscow on Friday, and now the French will try to prevent Messi from creating any masterworks of his own in Kazan Arena.

“Messi is Messi,” said Didier Deschamps, the French coach, who was the captain of the the team that won the 1998 World Cup. “You only have to look at his statistics: 65 goals in 127 matches. That says it all. In absolute terms, the ideal is to neutralize him, but we all know that he is capable with very little to make the difference.”

The teams have not played each other in the World Cup since 1978, when Argentina won, 2-1, in the group phase on its way to the title. The teams last played in a friendly in February 2009 in Marseilles.

Messi, then just 21, was in the starting lineup for that game, a 2-0 victory. None of France’s current field players can say the same. But then the French have an exceptionally youthful team, which means that for some of them, this will be their first opportunity to see Messi’s skills in person as opposed to watching him on television with his club team, Barcelona.

“Against Argentina, we’ll have to be at our highest level,” said Hugo Lloris, the French captain and goalkeeper. “You can study the opponent and their three matches, and that helps give us indications. But we also know Messi can lift his level and decide the outcome, as he is accustomed to doing with Argentina but also with Barcelona.”

Messi has hardly been at the peak of his powers here, but he showed his class amid the tumult of Argentina’s fractious campaign when he scored a gem of an opening goal against Nigeria, controlling a long pass and shooting on the move as perhaps only he could have done.

But over the course of his career, Messi has yet to be decisive in the decisive phase of a World Cup.

He has yet to score in the knockout round.

Not in Germany in 2006, when he entered the game in the 84th minute against Mexico in the round of 16. Not in South Africa in 2010, when Argentina was overwhelmed, 4-0, by Germany in the quarterfinals.

Not in Brazil in 2014, when Messi was awarded the Golden Ball as the tournament’s outstanding player, but when all four of his goals came in the group phase. Argentina lost to Germany again, this time in the final.

Clearly Messi does not have to score for Argentina to succeed: He will always draw a crowd and he can help his teammates shine. L’Equipe, the French sports daily, set the tone with its front page on Friday, creating an image of five French players surrounding Messi in mid-dribble with the Spanish headline “No pasará!” (“He won’t get past,” which could also translate as “It won’t happen.”)

“I’m sure France has their plan to neutralize Leo, but we have our own plan to make his life easier, so let’s see who has better luck executing their plan,” Jorge Sampaoli, Argentina’s coach, said with his tattooed forearms crossed on Friday. “Let me repeat that Argentina has the best player on the planet, but we also have other players who can make France’s life quite difficult in other ways.”

Neither team has reassured its nation so far. The French have been winning ugly and also drawing ugly. Its scoreless match against Denmark in the final group game left its public particularly underwhelmed, even though France had already had secured a place in the knockout round.

Vincent Duluc, the French journalist and author who has been covering the national team for decades, summed up the mood in L’Equipe: “The group phase is complicated for nearly everyone, but nearly everyone is more attractive to watch. And the first 10 days for the French have not left the trace of an emotion beyond a good first half against Peru.”

Deschamps, as he did during World Cup qualifying, has shuffled lineups as if he still has not found what he is looking for.

Against Denmark, he took the opportunity to rest or protect several key players, including Paul Pogba, Samuel Umtiti and Lloris. Argentina did not have that luxury against Nigeria, so France, with just a three-day gap between games, might have fresher legs as well as younger legs.

But the French attack, which was supposed to be its strength with players like Antoine Griezmann and Kylian Mbappé, has been unimpressive so far except for a few passages of sparkling combination play.

The French have three goals in three games: one on a penalty kick awarded after consultation with the Video Assistant Referees; one on an own goal by Australia; and one on a tap-in by Mbappé after a deflection.

Griezmann, a particularly key figure, has yet to find top gear. But he pointed out this week that he did not hit full stride until the knockout phase at the 2016 European Championships, where he ended up with six goals as France reached the final at home.

“I’m going to gather strength,” he said, “and I’m sure the level everyone expects is going to come very quickly.”

Quickly seems his only option with the “real” World Cup beginning Saturday and with Argentina and Messi still here and still hungry.

“It’s a new tournament now, and it’s make or break,” Deschamps said.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page B10 of the New York edition with the headline: France and Argentina Meet in an Elite Battle for Survival.