World Cup 2022: Lionel Messi's Argentina are champions despite Mbapp茅 hat-trick for France
- Published
- comments
Argentina have won the World Cup for the third time, after an epic final against France.
In his final World Cup match, Lionel Messi won the last trophy missing from his collection, scoring two goals during the match and a penalty in the shoot-out to take the title.
In what some experts have described as the best World Cup final ever, France came back from 2-0 down to force extra time at 2-2.
Then both teams scored in extra time to make it 3-3 before the shootout.
PSG star Kylian Mbapp茅 scored all France's goals and became the first man to score a hat-trick in the World Cup final for over 50 years, as Sir Geoff Hurst did when England won in 1966, but it wasn't enough to win football's biggest prize.
The match started really well for Argentina, after Messi scored a penalty then helped set up Di Maria to put them 2-0 ahead.
It made Messi the first player in World Cup history to score in the group stage, last 16, quarter-final, semi-final and final of a single tournament.
But towards the end of normal time France burst into life, with Kylian Mbapp茅 scoring twice in under two minutes to take the tie into extra time.
Messi scored again in the extra period, before Mbapp茅 stunned the South American team again - with a late penalty.
Which meant it was a penalty shootout.
During the shootout, Argentina goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez saved Kingsley Coman's penalty and Aurelien Tchouameni, who scored against England, missed.
Argentina scored four penalties, which was enough to win the shootout 4-2.
Messi was also awarded the Golden Ball for the tournament's best player.
Kylian Mbapp茅 will finish the tournament with the Golden Boot, which is the prize for the person who scored the most goals.
What they said
After an incredible game Argentina manager Lionel Scaloni said: "The match was completely insane. I know we had a good match, we could have won in the first 90 minutes," he said.
"I have the best feelings ever. The most important thing is how we achieved this."
For France boss Didier Deschamps it was a case of almost, but not quite: "I always said everything is possible, you can change in a blink of an eye and we did that. We came back from the dead, and made a magnificent comeback - unfortunately it was just not enough.
"It was the World Cup of records and Kylian has left his mark on the final but unfortunately not in the way he would have liked."