Argentina claim World Cup title in shootout after instant classic final
Argentina captain Lionel Messi lifts the FIFA World Cup trophy following victory over France in the FIFA World Cup Final. Picture: Nick Potts/PA Wire
The disciples came for a coronation. First, they’d have to endure calamity and chaos.
This has been Lionel Messi’s journey to immortality, filled with false dawns and broken dreams. Crawling through a 17-year river of shit before he could come out clean at the summit of it all.
As the Lusail Stadium witnessed the wildest and most wondrous World Cup final in living memory, a game that almost killed us all, Messi twice thought he was finally at the end of the tunnel. Kylian Mbappé intervened. The pretender twice dragged back the master, scoring a World Cup final hat trick in the process. Yet somehow at the end of it all Messi had his deliverance. A night for the ages.
It would only be decided from the spot as Emiliano Martinez and Gonzalo Montiel, who himself had conceded the 118th minute penalty that gave Mbappé his second stunning equaliser, were the shoot-out heroes. Messi looked five, ten years younger as he cavorted in front of the Argentine army. A lifetime’s worth of stresses fell away in glory.
But twice the world fell like it was falling in again First, it was just ten minutes away. Messi had his World Cup, he had been lifted up to join the game’s gods by Angel Di Maria as Albiceleste choruses filled the Doha sky. Two goals to the good. Total control. Ten minutes.
Mbappé had other ideas. But his head only filled when Nicolas Otamendi lost his, the defender conceding a needless penalty on 80 minutes that Mbappé buried low beyond Emi Martinez. From nowhere, France, who hadn’t even been passengers in the procession but poorly bystanders, were in it and level within seconds.
Messi stood at the centre circle, head bowed as Mbappé walked past he pumped his fist. But Lionel Scaloni’s side righted themselves in extra time and when Messi bundled in on 108 minutes he was there again. Until he wasn’t. Mbappé scored a second penalty and we were somehow right back where we started. Bless Martinez and Montiel for finding a way to end it all. Gold for Messi. Silver for Mbappé. And somehow, that felt right.
So much of the build-up had centred on these PSG teammates. It was an understandable and irresistible narrative. But it was flawed too. A team sport of two sets of 11 can only be controlled so much by a single player, even if it’s the greatest of this generation and the next.
Deschamps and Scaloni did their best to find the right complimentary pieces among their respective other 10. Fears of the desert flu virus impacting France didn’t look to be realised with Deschamps able to bring Adrien Rabiot and Dayot Upamecano in to what was a first-choice XI, from those still gathered here at least. Scaloni drafted Di Maria back in for his first start of the knockout stages and then had to draft Nicolas Tagliafico in when Marcos Acuna was injured in the warmup.
They showed no signs of the late switch throwing them off. Everyone in powder blue and white was busy and better from the first kick. Their pressing was making the French uneasy right away. There wasn’t a single man in blue who looked comfortable. XXXX Alexis Mac Allister fired the first shot in anger and on target after five minutes and four minutes later Rodrigo De Paul rifled another that skewed out off Raphael Varane. The French looked at each other and tried to gather but they were already in pieces.
Di Maria had been Argentina’s target early and often. After plenty of positive signals he lit the torch on 22 minutes. Julian Alvarez pinged a lovely little pass the winger’s way and he had the beating of Ousmane Dembele twice, his heels just about clipped the second time. It was soft but it was stupid too and France hadn’t earned an ounce of sympathy.
Messi would have a fifth penalty attempt of Qatar 2022, remarkably his fourth at this exact end of Lusail. His only miss had come away from here but this one went the way of the other three at the venue, Lloris sent the wrong way after a pivotal little Messi pause.
He had a World Cup final goal. He had also become the first player ever to score in every knockout round of a single World Cup. But these, again, were mere footnotes to the towering achievement in the sky. The only one that mattered. Within a dozen minutes or so he’d be even closer.
We may soon find out what was ailing France but Argentina clearly diagnosed a huge weakness, a golden chance at glory. In the 36th minute Argentina scored one of the most perfect team goals this tournament has seen on its final day, or indeed any other. On a terribly bumpy surface, it happened so smoothly — and swiftly. Yet at each juncture, five different Argentine players stopped the clock and the noise tick, ticked higher.
Mac Allister turned in his own half and found Messi who controlled and in a blur flicked a gorgeous ball out to Julian Alvarez. It jumped up to shin height but he somehow controlled and passed in one still moment, sending the ball into the space where Mac Allister was galloping to meet it. French bodies were flooding back but none was keeping up with Di Maria, inspired and unstoppable on this day. Mac Allister slid one into the no man’s land between Aurelien Tchouameni and Hugo Lloris and Di Maria sent it home. Bedlam. Tears. But all of it premature.
Deschamps went drastic and hauled Dembele and Olivier Giroud off. It changed not a jot. By the interval Mbappé had 11 touches, the lowest of any outfield player who had started the match.
It genuinely never seemed possible he would touch the game in such an earth-shattering way. Argentina enjoyed second-half openings and could have made them count. Five minutes after the break De Paul tried his luck as did Alvarez soon after. Rabiot blocked another effort after Di Maria had again roasted Jules Kounde on the hour. He came out soon after and Argentina stood to applaud the match-winner who wasn’t. Fifteen more minutes came and went and it was all petering out.
In stepped Otamendi. The clock was ticking towards the last 10 as Randal Kolo Muani, one of those drastic first-half changes, hustled past the veteran defender who had been so good to this point. But Otamendi got too close and caught Kolo Muani’s heels. Mbappé stepped up and buried it low and to his left, beyond Emi Martinez.
Argentina had opened the door again. Then France blew the hinges off. Messi, of all people, easily dispossessed by another French replacement Kingsley Coman who raced away. The ball was filtered across to Mbappé who nodded a one-two with yet another Deschamps replacement Marcus Thuram, the ball looping over Cristian Romero to a space where Mbappé now was. He met it falling down with a brilliant volley which beat Martinez, who could have done better. Less than two minutes, it seemed, was more than enough to destroy the game’s grandest dream.
All around the place no one in powder blue and white was doing well now. It was the Netherlands all over again but even more inexplicable. All rhyme and reason had wafted off into the desert night and we were left with a glorious form of chaos. The remaining minutes and the eight of injury time were a slugfest where neither side could find the punch but swung manically anyway. It was Ward-Gatti Round 9 on grass.
Messi crafted the closest thing we got to a winner when he unleashed a sting drive that Lloris clawed away. Another 30 minutes was called for but they could have called the medic too.
Argentina came to life again at the end of the first half of extras but Upamecano denied Lautaro Martinez with a stunning block. Four minutes after the turnaround Messi had what he surely thought was his final moment of deliverance, bundling in a scrappy one that crawled over the line. The Argentine bench was in floods of tears. Again, it was premature.
With four minutes left, a French corner was cleared and Mbappé rifled an effort that hit the arm of Gonzalo Montiel. We thought we’d known disbelief but were stunned anew. Mbappé stepped up and was nerveless.
Still there was time for incredible chances to decide it before penalties. Kolo Muani almost nodded in and finally Martinez skewed a front-post header wide right at the death. It was wrong that it would be decided from 12 yards but we’d had literally everything else. So why not?
The main protagonists both buried theirs so it was down to the rest. Martinez, a specialist at all of this, saved brilliantly from Coman and Argentina believed again. When Tchouameni sent the third French effort wide they were almost there. It all came down to Montiel. He never wavered.
Then, and only then, came Messi’s coronation. Utterly incredible.
Martinez 6; Molina 6 (Montiel 91), Romero 7, Otamendi 6, Tagliafico 6 (Dybala 120); Di María 9 (Acuna 64), De Paul 6 Paredes, E Fernández 7, Mac Allister 7; Messi 9, Álvarez 7 (L. Martinez 102).
Goals: Messi (23, P); Di Maria (36)
Booked: Fernandez, Acuna, Paredes, Montiel, Martinez
: Lloris 6; Kounde 5 (Disasi 120), Varane 5 (Konate 113), Upamecano 5, Hernandez 4 (Camavinga 72); Tchouameni 6, Rabiot 5 (Fofana 96); Griezmann 4 (Coman 72); Dembele 3 (Kolo Muani 40), Giroud 4 (Thuram 40), Mbappe 8.
Goals: Mbappé (80, P; 81) Booked: Rabiot, Thuram, Giroud.
Szymon Marciniak (POL) 7
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