World Cup final preview: Endings everywhere... and one more to come 

Two of the tournament's blue bloods face off in game that will go towards defining legacies for the game's top players and the World Cup's hosts

ARTISTS AT WORK: Students adjust paintings of Argentina's Lionel Messi and France's Kylian Mbappe ahead of Sunday's World Cup football final

Against a dusty lilac sky, the flags were still visible as they bobbed across Doha’s Bay. But there were just four now and the trailing two barely mattered.

As the sun set on the city’s holy day here, the quartet of dhow boats, the two in front with mainsails of France and Argentina, the two behind Croatia and Morocco, made their route across still waters and curving around the Corniche walkway that hugs the bay. This was once a regatta, 32 dhows cutting across the blue like an Olympic sailing final. Now just two vessels of consequence.