Hyderabad: The final showdown is here. At the illuminated Lusail Stadium in Qatar will be the riveting clash between Argentina and defending champions France. As the intensity builds, anticipation runs sky-high, and quiet prayers to rouse Lionel Messi to get through the final hurdle -- the only smudge in his otherwise glittering career -- intensifies even among the atheists, there is probably one certainty. We are in for a grand contest at the grandest of stages -- the FIFA World Cup final.
Rolling the reel to the past matches, Argentina beat Croatia 3-0 with goals from Messi and Julian Alvarez in the semi-final. France too stormed into the finals, halting Morocco's rise by 2-0.
Read: EXPLAINER: Why are Argentines such ardent World Cup fans?
Here's what you should know ahead of the contest:
Time: 8:30 PM
Stadium: Lusail Stadium
Head-to-Head: The stats have Argentina's dominance written all over it. Both the sides have faced each other 12 times where Argentina have won six, France have defeated them 3 times and three matches have ended in a draw.
Total matches: 12
Argentina: 6
France: 3
Draw: 3
Head-to-Head in World Cups: In World Cups too, Argentines have asserted their domination with both sides facing each other three times where Argentina won 2 of the games and France had a sole win.
Total matches: 3
Argentina: 2
France: 1
Draw: 0
Additional fodder for the aficionados:
- Brazil was the last team from South America to win the WC trophy in 2002, thanks to Ronaldo's incredible run. It's been a long time waiting and Argentina will go on to become the first team since then to bring back the cup to the continent.
- It may be too early for the choker's tag to be labelled with the Argentinian side but they have lost their last two finals in 2014 and 1990.
- The run for the golden boot has intensified with Kylian Mbappe and Lionel Messi tied at 5 goals each, Olivier Giroud and Julian Alvarez have 4 goals apiece. History records reveal that Ronaldo, with 8 goals in the tournament, was the last player to have won the boot from the winning team.
- Brazil have held the title five times, Germany and Italy together have four to their name. In Argentina's win, the country will join the elite club with three or more victories.
- If France wins tonight, they will become the only third team to have defended the title, the previous being Italy who won in 1934 and 1938 and Brazil in 1958 and 1962.
- Much to the joy of Argentina's fans, their team have scored the opening goal against their opposition in the last six matches.
- In a World Cup tournament, Brazil stands atop with 237 goals, next to them are Germany with 232 goals. Argentina current number of goals stands at 149 and are on the cusp of becoming the third team with maximum number of goals and earn a distinction of 150 goals.
- France have been dominant in World Cups. They have reached the finals four times in the last seven appearances.
Preview:
Messi seeks glory, Argentina meets France in World Cup final
Doha: It is now or never for Lionel Messi. The Argentina superstar's once-in-a-generation career will be defined for many by whether he leads his country to the World Cup title on Sunday. Can he finally, at the age of 35, win soccer's biggest prize to secure his place alongside Pele and Diego Maradona in the pantheon of the game's greatest ever players?
Standing in his way is France, the defending champion, and Kylian Mbappe, the player best positioned to take over from Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo as soccer's marquee name. That's if he hasn't already. Mbappe also is standing on the cusp of history heading into the match at the 80,000-seat Lusail Stadium, a title decider that is filled with storylines.
The 23-year-old France forward is looking to emulate Pele by being a champion at his first two World Cups and set up the prospect of a third title, a feat only ever achieved by the Brazil great who has been hospitalized during this year's tournament because of a respiratory infection.
Mbappe was 19 when he led France to its second World Cup title in 2018, becoming the youngest scorer in a final since a 17-year-old Pele did so in 1958. While Pele ended up being a peripheral figure in Brazil's 1962 triumph he didn't play in the knockout stage because of injury Mbappe has been France's go-to player in the team's bid to repeat.
Indeed, Mbappe enters the final tied as the tournament's leading scorer with five goals. The player alongside him? Messi, of course. Who wins the Golden Boot the award for the top scorer is just one of the many other narratives around the final.
There's France, the dominant national team of this generation, looking to become the first to win back-to-back World Cups since Brazil in 1962. The country that produced Michel Platini, Zinedine Zidane, Thierry Henry and now Mbappe will be playing in the final for the fourth time in the last seven World Cups, more than anyone else.
Then there's Didier Deschamps, a World Cup winner as a player in 1998 and now bidding to win it two times as a coach. Vittorio Pozzo was the only other man to coach two world champion teams, with Italy in 1934 and 1938. Like France, Argentina is seeking a third World Cup title after 1978 and 1986 to move into outright fourth place in the all-time list. It would end a 36-year wait for soccer's biggest prize, since Maradona's string of virtuoso performances in Mexico in 1986.
That made Maradona forever a hero in Argentina, and an icon around the soccer world. Messi now appears to be at that level win or lose on Sunday when he'll play in a record 26th World Cup match. Messi has evoked comparisons with Maradona in the way he has pushed Argentina to the final, scoring five goals, setting up three more and thrilling his team's legion of fans, who have poured into Qatar throughout the World Cup in numbers only really matched by those from Morocco.
In that sense, it will seem like a home game for Argentina, with France's supporters sure to be heavily outnumbered amid a sea of blue-and-white jerseys many of which will have MESSI 10 written on them. It is hard to pick a winner. France is a hardened tournament team with plenty of experience and the quality to eke out wins when not playing at its best. Deschamps has kept France's level high despite losing key players ahead of the tournament like Paul Pogba, N'Golo Kante, Presnel Kimpembe and Karim Benzema, the reigning world player of the year.
The French are the masters of being pragmatic, defending compactly and breaking at pace, typically through Mbappe down the left and through Antoine Griezmann, reinvented over the past month as a midfield playmaker. Indeed, expect to see Mbapp and Messi walking around a lot during the game, not bothering to defend or press. That is in the script, rather than them being lazy. Part of the skill of Deschamps and Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni is their ability to forge a team that has learned to defend a man light.
As for Argentina, the team is largely set up simply to get the best out of Messi, with Scaloni likely to select a quartet of central midfielders like in the 3-0 win over Croatia in the semifinals. They will scrap and press, and then give the ball to Messi to weave his magic. Or to Julin Alvarez, the striker who started the tournament as a backup for that unthinkable 2-1 opening loss to Saudi Arabia and now is undroppable with four goals to his name.
Alvarez is pinching himself that, at 22 and pretty much at the start of his career, he is the attacking foil for Messi at the great man's last World Cup. Similarly, the tens of thousands of spectators inside the stadiums in Qatar, and the millions watching on television around the world, have continued to be amazed at the magic Messi keeps on delivering.
Anyone who isn't French, or maybe a fervent fan of Ronaldo, is likely to be willing on Argentina's diminutive No. 10 in the biggest match of his career. Eight years ago, Messi walked away from the 1-0 loss to Germany in the 2014 final with the Golden Ball award for the tournament's best player.
This time, he'll want instead to be lifting another trophy, made of 18-carat solid gold, to cap a career like no other. ( Preview taken from AP)
