An epic football game ends on Sunday evening (12/18/2022) with the world title for Argentina and Lionel Messi. Lusail’s World Championship finale is bound to fill books.
In the subway, people were warned not to go to Lusail Boulevard because capacity was full. Nevertheless, arrival and departure masses were about the same. Argentina’s fans, who came from central Doha and got off at the stadium’s metro station, sang loudly and blew their horns.
Argentina and France show an epic game
The departing fans, on the other hand, were rather quiet. You will have felt like Enzo Fernández, who can now call himself world champion. “What can I say? I don’t know either”the Argentina midfielder shook his head.
The final of the 2022 World Cup will be talked about, raved about and written about for a long time to come. Argentina and France showed an epic game, the French sports newspaper “L’Equipe” wrote aptly of a “surreal scenario”.
Sad Mbappé – with four goals in one evening
Kylian Mbappé scored four goals including the penalty shootout, but was still one of the saddest people in the thousands of post-game photos of ecstasy, sadness, happiness and anger.
The photo of Lionel Messi kissing his longing, the golden trophy, went around the world in a matter of seconds. This image will grace the covers of books written about the World Cup, maybe just this one game with so many chapters.
Lionel Messi kisses the World Cup trophy
A chapter for the coaches – Deschamps and Scaloni
One must be dedicated to the coaches. One of them, it was clear in the 41st minute, would be showered with praise for a significant decision that night.
Argentina’s Lionel Scaloni had opted to start Ángel Di María instead of Leandro Paredes. He also changed his basic formation from a 4-4-2 to a 4-3-3 and acted more offensively than expected. The tactic worked, Argentina were superior in the first half, Di María completed a fantastic counterattack in the 36th minute to make it 2-0.
Five minutes later Didier Deschamps intervened spectacularly in the game. He took Ousmane Dembélé and Olivier Giroud off and brought on the two Bundesliga players Randal Kolo Muani and Marcus Thuram. It took longer for the change to take effect. But after Kingsley Coman from Bayern Munich joined the team (71st), France became stronger. The defending champion equalized within 94 seconds.
Parallel to the game against the Netherlands
In the quarter-finals against the Netherlands, Argentina lost a 2-0 lead, even at the Lusail Stadium.
Winning twice in knockout games from a psychologically difficult situation shows the strength of Scaloni’s side, who cried uncontrollably after the final whistle. “As a coach you always want to do everything right. Today I was lucky enough to do everything right.”
Just before the end of extra time, there was a good chance these sentences would be said after Deschamps’ final whistle. Eintracht Frankfurt striker Kolo Muani ran towards Argentina’s goal.
The conclusion, it was clear in view of the score of 3:3 and the advanced time, would get a chapter in the book about the long memorable final. Kolo Muani scored, Emiliano Martínez saved with a save that, aside from the wonderful goals and spectacular scenes of superstars Messi and Mbappé, will make it into every highlight video of this unique football game.
Goalkeeper Martinez: “Really not dreamed of”
“It was an unbelievable, unbelievable final. I didn’t dream of it”said Martínez, who saved Coman’s shot on penalties, giving Argentina the psychological advantage that never faltered.
The team, who lost to Saudi Arabia in the opening game and then played only moderately in the game against Mexico, are now world champions. It was Messi who dispelled the fear of losing early on with a long-range shot against Mexico.
He was the key factor in Argentina’s third title win, but great performances were also shown by Martínez, Fernández, Rodrigo De Paul, Alexis Mac Allister and Julián Álvarez, guided by 44-year-old Lionel Scaloni.
Messi’s longing for home
“It’s crazy that it happened like this. I wanted it so badly. I knew God would give it to me, I had a feeling it would be like this”said Messi, now accomplished.
He can’t wait to get home to see “How crazy” the people are there. The celebrations in Buenos Aires will have their own chapter. This was already evident in the hours when some fans in Lusail had not yet processed the game of the century.