Lionel Messi secured the missing title in his football career when he led Argentina to their third World Cup title in Qatar yesterday.
The South American nation won a classic World Cup final clash with France 4-2 in penalty shootouts after regulation and extra time of 120 minutes deadlocked 3-3 inside the magnificent Lusail Stadium.
Kylian Mbappe’s hat trick goals in the final to take his total tally in the tournament to eight were not enough to earn the French men a back-to-back victory in the Mundial, having won the Russia 2018 edition.
It was Gonzalo Montiel who converted the winning spot-kick to clinch the 4-2 shoot-out success for Argentina at the end of a thriller encounter.
Expectedly, Argentina’s goalkeeper, Emiliano Martinez, who saved Kingsley Coman’s attempt and saw Aurelien Tchouameni fire wide in the shootouts, truly deserved his Best Goalkeeper of the Tournament award. It was a second time penalty jinx for France, who had similarly lost the 2006 World Cup final shootouts to Italy at the edition hosted by Germany. The loss also denied them the chance to emulate Uruguay and Brazil as the only three countries to have ever won the World Cup back-to-back.
On a day that almost the entire 88,966 fans crammed into the Lusail Stadium were rooting for Argentina, partly because of the Messi sentiments, it was the Albiceleste that raced to a two-goal advantage to set the tone for an expected easy evening.
Messi had opened the scoring, before Angel Di Maria rounded off a stunning counter-attacking move for the Albiceleste’s second goal. Messi calmly beat Hugo Lloris from the penalty spot in the 21st minute after Ousmane Dembele made contact with Di Maria in the box.
The second goal from Di Maria was sublime, as Messi was also involved. He played a fine flicked pass into the path of Julian Alvarez, who in turn played in Alexis Mac Allister to find Di Maria on the far side.
But Mbappe pulled the Les Blues from the brink after 80 minutes of action in the tension-soaked game.
He added a second goal less than two minutes later to tie the game 2-2 and poured ice-cold water on the Argentine fans, who had turned the match to a sort of carnival.
France, aiming to become only the third side to ever retain the trophy, battled back from two goals down in normal time after Mbappe converted an 81st-minute penalty. He converted when Nicolas Otamendi dragged down Kolo Muani.
The two players, Marcus Thuram and Randal Kolo Muani, brought in by France Coach, Didier Deschamps, in a double change before half-time, made a telling impact.
But in the tale end of the match, Messi again looked to have won it for Argentina in extra time when reacting quickest to a saved Lautaro Martinez attempt, only for Paris Saint-Germain club-mate Mbappe to equalise once more through a penalty after his shot hit Montiel on the arm.
In the ensuing shootouts, Argentina’s goalkeeper, Martínez blocked Kingsley Coman’s strike while Aurelien Tchouameni missed the target. All the four South American players – Messi, Paulo Dybala, L. Parades, and Gonzalo Montiel – converted to give the Albiceleste their third World Cup title.
On realising that he had finally achieved his life-long ambition of a World Cup winning medal, Messi collapsed to the turf and was joined in celebration by other Argentina players and officials.
The other two times they had won the title were in 1978 and 1986.
