Thirty days and 63 matches have gone by at the first World Cup in the Middle East, and the final will be between two two-time champions, Argentina and France, at the 90,000-capacity Lusail Stadium in Doha. Will it be the crowning achievement of Lionel Messi’s extraordinary football career, or will it be a torch-passing ceremony to the quicksilver Kylian Mbappe?
“We can win it,” said Lionel Messi, while Didier Deschamps, France manager, said, “we can retain it.” Whichever of those two statements comes true on Sunday will bestow legendary status on either party. For Messi, it will be the crowning glory of an already triumphant career, and for Les Bleus, they will become the first team in 60 years to retain the World Cup while Deschamps will become only the second man ever to win the World Cup thrice-once as captain in 1998 as manager in 2018.
France’s first triumph was in 1998 in Paris, and they had to wait 20 years before winning again in Russia in 2018. Argentina’s first win also came on home soil in Buenos Aires in 1978, before Diego “the Hand of God” Maradona achieved immortality with a second triumph in Mexico in 1986.
