The most extraordinary final in World Cup history between the two best teams in the competition and the game’s two finest players in Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappe was the perfect climax to the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
Mbappe, a hat-trick securing the Golden Boot as the finals’ eight-goal top scorer, finished on the losing side as France lost the crown secured four years ago in Moscow. But the enduring story of Qatar’s controversial World Cup will focus on Messi.
The 35-year-old did not need World Cup success to confirm him as one of the greatest footballers of all time, but most football fans wanted it for him. Messi duly opened the scoring and helped create a second for Angel Di Maria. The match was not even a contest until Mbappe’s dramatic, late equalising double, the extra-time seesaw and eventually the shootout –
