Argentina Wins the World Cup
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
The plot twists we watched this time is just not common. It has been a long time since I watched such a good game and it will probably restore my feelings on watching football again. I think other Brazilians can say the same.
Thank you all who made this possible.
Disclaimer: I spent a few days in Argentina in 2011. That country and people have a special place in my heart. I learned to appreciate the sound of romance languages beyond Portuguese and took a respectful photo in Maradona's star. It is an emotional thing to see Messi make it in his last chance and Argentina get another title since 1986. Dieguito is no longer alone and I'm happy to see that in a way that is hard to explain.
And Mbappe still showed up and put in one of the most heroic performances I’ve ever seen in sports, basically carrying the entire team. Really looking forward to watching his career.
Surely the team was decimated, such is life.
He is an amazing player with no equal at this moment.
Still it let Mbappe shine and put on a legendary show
I was watching with a French friend and cheering for them, but I’ve got to say Argentina earned it and it would have been a shame if Messi never got a cup.
Mbappé’s hat trick was also an epic display that the torch is being passed to the next generation. Tonight was just about everything you could ask for in a game.
It required about 8 minutes of nearly perfect play to keep their chances alive.
Also loved that everyone booed the Qatari blokes.
I always find this hilarious, half of Canary Wharf is owned by Qataris lol
In the first half, Argentina dominated possession and kept France completely on defense and just pummeled them, a boxer just getting blasted in the corner holding gloves up for dear life, super lopsided.
In the second half, from the very start, France was hungry for blood, it's just that the Argentinian defense was very strong as they had not yet really had to play much in the first half. It seemed boring because we were already thinking we saw this going 3-0, Messi sweeping up the Cup easily in the last game against a sick team stuck at their 75%. But if you are paying more attention, you will see France with the lead on possession, numerous back-and-forth pushes, lots of French pushes only to be stuck inside a “cup” of three Argentine defenders who shut it down... Then they start to get tired, leading to that first penalty (“let me just hug you in the box”), followed by the French sharks sensing the fatigue, blood in the water, a French feeding frenzy. It should hold up well I think
No one booed the qataris. In fact the boos ended once the king was announced.
They love their king and deservedly so
No diving, no risk-averse passes for minutes, no BS. It was a proper world cup final.
By what standard was there "No diving"? Do you mean by the standard of "they all dive all of the time, so this wasn't bad relative to that"?
As someone who doesn't watch soccer, saying there was "No diving" beggars belief.
One does wish for less dramatization overall but you have to remember that if you keep playing the ref can rule that you did not wish to take the free kick. This is allowed since it's sometimes more advantageous. The rule is quite literally called advantage, and you don't want to take it unless it makes sense, although the ref usually makes a judgement call after a couple seconds. Still..
Did you not see the first penalty??
That was a Neymar class performance worthy of a Fallon d'Floor award.
It just so happened that things went out of the script in the following 3 minutes, and then after we proceeded to watch quite possibly the best extra time played of all time, certainly in a final game.
Best final? Possibly. But only because of the unexpected 2-2 which looked impossible in the preceding 80mins. In fact, there was only 1 team that showed up for most of the first 90mins.
Had the game not gone into extra time, this would just be another lopsided game with a deserved winner. This was not a trade of blows, Rocky style.
That was left for extra time :)
I get tired of things being proclaimed "the best ever" though. "It was really good" is plenty, unless you've watched every other one.
I was surprise they continue attacking, and were very close to the 3rd goal.
For a game to qualify as the "best ever", there MUST be trading blows. And I don't mean like fistfights. I mean like end to end almost-goal action. And comebacks.
Which is exactly what happened in extra time. Twice. And plenty of chances gone amiss
NO one remembers a game that ended 1-0 with nothing else happening. Its not memorable
Even if its a final.
Please compare to every other World Cup final now. Even the ones before you were born. List them all here.
OR : we can just agree that it was a great game.
I don't know if Messi is greater than Pelé or Maradona. Or if Muhammed Ali was greater than Joe Louis. They're all great.
Simply look at XG, progressive passing, even something as basic as chances created, and i bet you will see a marked difference with other finals.
And I mean the numbers will be high, but critically, and -this is important- they will high numbers split between BOTH teams. I think stats will bear that out. Unf I don't have access to opta to get this info without paying.
Usually in Extra time you have both teams playing conservative, OR 1 team chasing the win and the other holding for dear life.
Yesterday both teams were out to hurt each other.
Looks like he didn't have to since he still won 3 world cups.
>After changing the rules in 1995, France Football did an extensive analysis in 2015 of the players who would have won the award if it was open for them since 1956—the year the Ballon d'Or award started. Their study revealed that Pelé would have received the award a record seven times (Ballon d'or: Le nouveau palmarès). The original recipients, however, remain unchanged.
At the time Europe, particularly UK, was the backwater for soccer.
Teams (and players) went to play in Uruguay exhibition matches, because that's what the best players did.
EU didn't rise as a competitive market until the late 80s.
Before that, certainly around the time of Pele, Penarol, Santos and some other south american teams ran around in CIRCLES against any european team. Look at who won the world cups! France did not even register. UK was nothing except on home soil. Spain was a backwater league. Italy was just emerging. Germany was the only country that could actually compete.
Only the Hungarians were worthy of calling themselves competition....
More here: https://www.fourfourtwo.com/features/ac-milan-silvio-berlusc...
Looking over the winners of the early world cups, I'm trying to square the results with what you've written here (I'm not a soccer watcher): Europe won 5 out of the first 10 world cups (1930-1974); Italy won both the second and third. England won the 1966 cup, which interrupted Pele's run of World Cup wins.
https://web.archive.org/web/20190627023833/https://www.fifa....
Alfredo Di Stéfano:
"The best player ever? Pele. Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are both great players with specific qualities, but Pele was better," Di Stefano told El Colombiano.
Di Stefano played over 300 games for Real Madrid, winning eight La Liga titles, and five European Champions Cups.
Messi took 4 PKs in the tournament that were won by teammates
and that's while not even talking about older players like maradona, pelé and garrincha.
The same commenter also calls both Messi and Maradona dribbling playmaking forwards.
Some of their other comments when talking about Messi say, "If you come at the King, you best not miss."
But, yeah, in the great scheme of things this would be the magic trio for me: Pele, Maradona, Messi, in chronological order, that is.
Tough for France and Mbappe. Dead and buried at 80 minutes then took it all the way to penalties.
Meh, a penalty series spoils the nature of the game.
I can say that as a player I can stomach a loss on penalties, I wouldn't say that I enjoy taking them but I could handle it. I would absolutely detest the idea of playing Extra Time with my teammates disappearing every few minutes.
Edit: hope it doesn’t sound like I was having a go at you for raising this proposal! On the contrary, I find it interesting when people want to tweak the game in creative ways and talk about it!
And a series of static 1v1s is more accurate than a series of 10v10s, 9v9s and so on?
People have criticized chess for pretty much the same thing wrt tie breakers for world championship, classic chess being decided by player's proficiency in a very different format and decision making.
I'm not saying I support the diminishing player count, but perhaps penalties should be deferred until another (3rd total) added extra time in the final match only. Maybe give the teams 2 extra subs if it is still tied after 2nd AET.
There’s no easy way to handle a situation like this, but utilising an already integral component of the game like penalties is probably the fairest solution, and it helps that it’s the one with the most excitement and drama for those watching. It could be much worse, before penalties a literal coin toss was used. If recall correctly teams made it thru to the European Cup (what the Champions League used to be called) final based on a coin toss
Having said that in the US college hockey they do a 3 on 3 overtime. In contrast to a typical 5 v 5 game it is INTENSE. Crowd is on the edge of their seat and so on. Suddenly it's like some back yard / local ice rink where kids just get together to play style game.
It's still the same game as far as the players go, but just more space and a great pass or move to shake a defender / goal keeper is huge.
I don't know if that's the best route to go, but it really is exciting and I prefer it to shootouts by far.
> I don't know if that means the better "team" wins, but if that's the point I think is up for debate too...
Of course you should keep in mind that if you want the better team to win with a p-value of e.g. < 0.001, then you will have to play hundreds of games ...
It's a constant discussion I have where folks talk about a playoff is there to determine the best team but ... that's not really how it works. Having said that, I'd rather not see an endless "regular season" where we just tally up stats and everyone just goes home after playing a ho hum game and happy that they're statistical champs ...
I like playoffs, it produces those extraordinary moments of greatness that we seem to want in sports.
(45+5)+(45+10)+(15+15+5)
Unfortunately TV time slots are so strict, that getting actual 90+30 min of game time cannot really be a thing anymore.
Thus, strategies to waste time dominate, much to the frustration of everyone except the winning team
Will give enough incentive to try and win, but also be fair to both if there's a tie.
Penalties is just a more elaborate form of a coin flip, still largely random.
It's true that penalties test fewer skills than a full-fledged game of football. But they are still a contest of skill, not a game of chance.
I walked out of the pub in disgust.
Eventually the box was reduced and now penalties are a (99%) sure way of scoring.
I don’t know why you mentioned Messi and etc., I was replying to what you said about trying to optimize for PKs during a game.
"In Europe’s top five leagues, 10.41% of the goals were scored from penalties"
https://www.driblab.com/driblab-en/how-significant-are-penal...
If I am coaching a national team, I am studying every game in this tournament and learning exactly what characteristics, what combo of players, what scenarios are most likely to generate PKs and going all-in with that strategy. Maybe Argentina's coach already did.
Mbappe and Giroud act too cocky, always have a face on like they're the stars of a show and the camera's on them, and a lot of the time don't feel like they're playing for the team or as a team.
Argentina on the other hand acts as the sum of a machine's parts. And though Messi is a star, he doesn't act like it on the field, appears grateful for his team, and plays as a member of a team.
Super happy Argentina won, happy to have seen the SK vs Portugal match, and happy to have seen Morocco's games. But also happy to see Mbappe sit and pout even after pulling off a hat-trick in the final game of the world cup lol
He scored a bloody goal in ET!
Other players have a more fighting image, and they run here and there, and scream, and look more connected to the game.
The choice a nice fighting image or almost a goal per game.
Edit: YouTube just suggested me https://www.youtube.com/shorts/b6qBbLxP53s
> Mbappe has now score four times in two WC Finals. Not bad for a 23yo.
Yeah absolutely, he's taking the record for sure. He carried the team on his back. Messi's been doing that for longer though.
France surrendered the midfield from the get-go. That midfield was key to their counter-attacking game in 2018.
This is the narrative, but it’s far from reality. Mbappe was invisible for 80 minutes, his refusal to track back and defend in part the reason France were forced to sub off Giroud and move Mbappe into the centre.
He scored two penalties, admittedly that requires nerves of steel but it’s not particularly impressive given they’ve a high xG, and scored an excellent second goal.
Typically players are judged on their quality throughout the entire game, not a moment of quality in an otherwise drab performance, but this seems to be the modern way - the highlights are more important.
To that end Messi was involved in everything, created the second goal with an excellent through ball into space, scored twice, and set up numerous chances that Martinez was unable to finish. A far more impactful performance.
I’m not sure I see how it counters my argument though - had Martinez let everything past him for the first 80 minutes (not that France actually had a shot during that time, but hypothetically) whilst an excellent Argentine attack kept it level, that save alone wouldn’t cement greatness as the rest of his performance was subpar.
This is essentially the crux of my argument regarding Mbappe, he was far too quiet for far too long and didn’t play for the team often enough to deserve such plaudits.
It still boggles my mind that FIFA weren't forced to overturn the decision when they were uncovered as the most corrupt organisation to ever have existed.
Now, Maradona is indisputably not alone.
[1] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FkSY4BDWQAEug3L?format=jpg&name=...
[0]: https://acoup.blog/2019/09/20/collections-this-isnt-sparta-p...
One thing that made me even happier is now i will be planning the 2026WC because at least 10 americans wants to go to see it.
1. Since the 2002 world cup in Japan/Korea, every time, if the winner is European , it got kicked out in the next tournament in the first round. 2002(France), 2010(Italy), 2014(Spain) and 2018(Germany). however, France broke the rule this time and almost won the title!
2. France had lost two finals in its history, both were in penalties (Today, and in 2006 against Italy).
3. Both Argentina and France have won the title two times so far. Argentina won the coveted trophy in 1978 and 1986 while France achieved glory in 1998 and 2018. So this final is: for whom the 3rd trophy goes? it turns out to be Argentina
4. France had the chance to join Italy (1934, 1938) and Brazil (1958,1962) to be the 3rd Team to win two World Cups successively, but failed.
I'm pretty sure Argentina's 3rd goal should have been revoked after a VAR review. Messi looks off-side for the second to last pass that starts the play. I assume VAR reviewed the ball on the goal line and the last pass but didn't look at the pass that started the play right before?
I wish the reviews were televised. We get to see the referees making decisions, why not the VAR communication too?
Messi was offside on the initial pass to Martinez (which you can't really see in the clip because of the close-up shot) but was back onside by the time Martinez passed it back to Messi (which you do see). So it's a good goal.
They did replay the entire sequence on the US Fox broadcast without the close-up.
He scored when he got the ball and that is great but he isn't yet the complete player that Messi is. Messi got the MVP today because he won the match for his team, through yes, a goal and a penalty but more importantly through drawing out space for Di Maria to generate the opportunities that created that initial lead.
This time I tracked it and really enjoyed the whole thing. The finals was the only game I was able watch in full and it was everything I hoped it would be.
Argentina’s second goal was just the best.
And news just in, they tried to buy off the VP of the European Union last week too.
There is no such thing. The corrupted person was a VP of the European Parliament, one of the 3 governing bodies of the EU.
"Supercomputer Predicts Argentina Wins 2022 World Cup" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33356979
The fact that the two (possibly three) top players of the tournament played for the same club is something to ponder about I feel.
I went through hell but I feel like I watched a truly extraordinary match. Maybe the best ever? The drama, the changes in fortune, Messi finally doing it, emulating Maradona in 1986, Mbappe getting a hat trick and not being on the winning side. The game was also a handing of the flame of world's greatest to Mbappe and, of course, the completion of Messi's trophy cabinet.
It was clash of the titans, Mbappe vs Messi. Fifa and the Qataris could not have scripted a better final. Unreal. I'm still in shock hours later.
I will remember this game for a long time. The dramatic twists and turns are so memorable.
I mean the work of the quasi-enslaved migrant laborers who built the stadiums in 100-degree heat, of course. But I'm sure Argentina put in plenty of effort too.
The current system of having two teams that win in the semi-finals play a game to determine the final winner, and the two teams that lose in the semi-finals play a third place play-off only actually determines who is 1st (the winner of the final) and who is 4th (the loser of the third place play off).
In years like this one, where the winner of the third play play-off (Croatia) loses in the semi-finals to the eventual winner of the final (Argentina), we get no information on how they compare to the loser of the final (France).
In years where the winner of the third place play off played the loser of the final in the semi-finals, we then do have enough information to rank all 4. The winner of the finals is #1 with no losses, the loser of the final and the winner of the third place play-off both have 1 loss, but they played each other in the final so we can order them, giving the loser of the final 2nd place, the winner of the third place play-off 3rd place, and the loser of that 4th place.
In years like this one, we are missing that game between the loser of the final and the winner of the third place playoff, who both have 1 loss, to order them, so all we can reasonable say this year is Argentina is in 1st, France and Croatia are 2nd and 3rd but we don't know which is which, and Morocco is 4th.
I suppose as a practical matter they don't want to have a France/Croatia game to figure it out because that game would come after the final and they want the final to be the last. But why not determine who gets 2nd and who gets 3rd by applying the tie breaks they use in the group stage?
Edit: thanks for the change
Given there is no female World Cup this year this is a little bit petty no? Im guessing you didn’t know that though because you don’t watch it.
It is colloquially called the Football (or Soccer) World Cup. The official name is the FIFA World Cup.
I was rooting for France, but congrats to Argentina and Messi.
Edit: Thank you to whoever changed the title.
Not entirely sure if that is true in North America, both Canada and USA.
If I was in a Seattle only bubble without friends from over seas or who immigrated yes I would not have seen or heard about the world cup.
Maybe if it was on after 1pm here I'd have seen it in a bar, but nope watched a sun belt conference Duluth trading bowl game instead.
The biggest problem is that soccer and American football are both Fall sports in American high school. A great athlete needs a special love for soccer to not end up playing on the American football team. American football in high school has all the prestige.
Christian Pulisic is a great example. If he has a different upbringing there is a good chance he is playing American Football as a wide receiver.
You'll have a very hard time finding any women playing at this level though.
> The FIFA World Cup, often simply called the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the sport's global governing body.
>FIFA competitions are separated for men and women. This separation must be safeguarded and protected.
I messed up here by trusting the first results on google while searching "can women play in the world cup" which brought up a bunch of Quora results saying that they can. I was a bit too eager to believe them because this is a thing in many other sports.
(The women's team will receive more money from the men's team as charity this year than they will earn in the next women's world cup, even if they win it.)
Game felt staged and considering the stakes...have a feeling it was fixed. But Im likelt wrong and I hope I am.
Miracles happen in football - like Liecester City lifting the EPL, a moment etched in the history of the sport. Croatia and Morrocco are warriors, happy for them too.
American football (gridiron) has the same roots as association football and rugby. They didn't randomly or illogically decide to call it "football"[1] when American universities first started playing it in the 19th century. Over time they changed rules to put more emphasis on throwing and catching, and less on kicking.
And Italy doesn't call it "football" either - they call it "calcio". What's your position on that?
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_American_football#F...
From WP: Soccer was a term used by the upper class whereas the working and middle classes preferred the word "football"; as the upper class lost influence in British society from the 1960s on, "football" supplanted "soccer" as the most commonly used and accepted word.