If you could script it, this is what you’d come up with – the most beautiful, narrative-rich ending to a tournament that, off the field, has exposed so much of the ugly side of football. On it, though, this is as good as it gets.
It’s France versus Argentina, sure, and there’s a supporting cast who will have a say, but the battle within the battle is unavoidable: Lionel Messi versus Kylian Mbappe. The magician and the machine. The king of football, looking for his crowning moment, and the heir to the throne – and the potential spoiler to this global sporting fairytale.
Kylian Mbappé and Lionel Messi, two of the world’s best footballers, will meet in the World Cup final.Credit:Getty
Messi, 35, is chasing the one trophy that has always eluded him, the only one that separates him from the legendary Diego Maradona and could bring an end to the GOAT debate once and for all.
Mbappe, who turns 24 two days after the final, could win it for the second time – and, you’d imagine, probably not the last. He scored in the decider four years ago and already has as many World Cup goals as Messi, who is attending his fifth and final tournament.
These are two of the most extraordinary footballers the game has ever seen, and it feels like destiny has brought them here, together, in Doha, their paths intersecting on the biggest stage in world sport. After all, the club they both play for, Paris Saint-Germain, is owned by the state of Qatar. And while the host nation proved a total bust at this tournament, the sheikhs and businessmen behind their multi-billion dollar sports washing project will still feel like winners at the end of Monday’s (2am AEDT) final: either way, one of their guys will be triumphant.
Messi joined PSG mid-last year – and only because of a financial crisis at FC Barcelona, which meant the club was legally unable to register his new contract with Spain’s La Liga. It was a shameful way for their greatest player to leave, and he was in tears as he confirmed his exit at a press conference.
Clubmates at PSG, Messi and Mbappé will be on opposing sides at the Lusail Iconic Stadium.Credit:Getty
Days later, he was unveiled in Paris. Network 10’s A-Leagues commentator Robbie Thomson was there at the Parc des Princes, in his previous guise as PSG’s in-house journalist, commentator and video producer, working at the club for close to a decade.
“It was the craziest day of all time,” Thomson said.
“The number of media that were there … we thought we’d seen crazy days with Neymar, Buffon, Zlatan. This just blew everything out of the water.
“No one could really believe that it was actually happening. When he arrived, PSG sold more shirts in 24 hours than they’d ever sold.”
Lionel Messi, who had wanted to stay at Barcelona, broke down at his farewell news conference. Credit:Getty
But the masses turned on him quickly. Messi’s first season at PSG was by no means awful, but by his own impossible standards, it left a lot to be desired. For the first time in his career, he seemed human. The same fans in Paris who showered him in adulation suddenly thought they’d been sold a lemon.
“[They said] Messi was just here on holiday, that he just walks everywhere. There was a feeling that it was not the Barcelona Messi that PSG had bought,” Thomson said.
“People weren’t, I think, prepared for the fact that at Barcelona, he’d had this team that worked for him for a decade, that every decision was made in consultation with him, and then he arrived at a new club, a new place for his family, he had to leave his home … and that had an impact on his football, off the pitch, as well as on the pitch, playing for a new team with a different way of playing, and not everything is geared towards you.
“Plus, you’ve also got Mbappe there on the opposite wing – so not everything’s going to go through Messi when you can put it through 10 times quicker to Mbappe, and it’s effective.”
Lionel Messi celebrates victory over the Socceroos.Credit:AP
This season, though, he’s been back to his best. Maybe it was the lure of a mid-season World Cup which brought it back out of him, maybe it was the niggling injuries he finally overcame, or maybe Messi simply settled in France, into the team, the league, and his family into their new surrounds. Whatever the genesis, everything clicked: he has already scored as many goals for PSG through 19 games of this campaign than he did through all of the last, and the fearsome frontline of him, Mbappe and Neymar finally looked as good in the flesh as it did on paper.
Messi has now carried that blistering form into this World Cup and carried Argentina on his back in the process. It’s been a slog for them to reach the final and were it not for his inimitable touch, the actions and outcomes that only he can conjure, they wouldn’t have reached the final. They might not have even gotten past the Socceroos.
The pressure on him has been intense, more than what one man can surely absorb, but somehow, he’s done it. He’s here, in his sixth major final for Argentina, the last hurdle, one last hurrah.
And then there’s Mbappe – young, fit, fast, powerful, charismatic, and a leader already. Not only does he seem to have it all, but he’s got it all so early, with so much of his life and career still ahead of him.
France’s Kylian Mbappé’s star is on the rise.Credit:AP
As Thomson puts it – and he’d know, having watched his incredible rise from the moment he joined PSG from AS Monaco five years ago – this was all part of the plan for Mbappe, who was born in Bondy, in the rough north-eastern suburbs of the French capital, into an athletic family, with his father a football coach and his mother a former handball player.
“It’s a tough, tough suburb, where a lot of great footballers have come from, and a lot were actually coached by his dad,” he said.
“Probably from about the age of 12, he has been groomed to be this person, the greatest player on earth. He is worth a lot, a lot of money. He has private bodyguards that follow him everywhere. He’s made all the sacrifices. His mum was very hard on him at school to make sure he got the marks required so that there were no skeletons in closets or anything like this. He is articulate, he speaks English and Spanish perfectly.
“Everything has been geared to him becoming this person.”
But that’s not to say he hasn’t had to grind along the way. Mbappe has tasted failure, too, at last year’s Euros, where he failed to score in any of France’s four games, and missed the decisive penalty in their round of 16 shootout with Switzerland that saw them knocked out of the tournament. And until he wins the ultimate prize at club level, the UEFA Champions League, there will be a ceiling to the way he is perceived – but there is a sense of inevitability about his ascension to football’s all-time elite tier.
Mbappe and Messi share an intriguing relationship; respectful but not exactly warm. We’d know more about it if either of them spoke publicly more often, but superstars of this calibre don’t have to – indeed, Mbappe brushed his press duties twice during this World Cup and has previously refused to take part in sponsor activities with the French FA as part of a dispute over his image rights.
Messi’s media appearances are short, sharp, carefully managed and often overshadowed by the unbridled adulation of Argentinian journalists, who seem to think their job is to channel their nation’s love towards him, rather than actually asking him anything of substance.
Messi heaped praise on Mbappe earlier this year, calling him a “complete footballer” and “a beast”, but in a rare interview with The New York Times, the latter signalled his intent to overtake the former.
“I always say I dream about everything. I have no limits … it’s a new generation. And Ronaldo, Messi – you’re gonna stop. We have to find someone else, someone new,” he said.
Can he do it, one day?
“It is subjective. Can Kylian win seven Ballon d’Ors? It’s a big ask,” said Thomson.
“For the moment what you can say is that Kylian is probably the most powerful and successful footballer on the planet. He’s more Ronaldo in style … because Ronaldo was a fleet-footed dribbler when he started out, as well, and Kylian’s blown him out of the water in terms of stats.
“But Messi … I mean, Messi’s Messi. He is unrivalled in the world, in terms of image – and that’s what Kylian will ultimately get to as well, if PSG start enjoying Champions League success. That’s the step.”
That, and this World Cup final, which should be one for the ages.
FRANCE vs ARGENTINA – THE LOWDOWN
World Cup final – Lusail Iconic Stadium, Doha – Monday 19 December, 2am (AEDT)
Projected line-ups
FRANCE (4-3-3) – Lloris; Kounde, Varane, Konate, T. Hernandez; Tchouameni, Fofana, Griezmann; Dembele, Giroud, Mbappe.
ARGENTINA (4-4-2) – Martinez; Molina, Romero, Otamendi, Tagliafico; De Paul, Paredes, Fernandez, Mac Allister; Messi, Alvarez.
Three burning questions:
Can Argentina keep their emotions in check?
There’s a bit on the line here for La Albiceleste, as you might have noticed – they’re hunting their first World Cup win since 1986 and want to send Messi off a winner. They’ve done well to harness this pressure thus far but their tempers threatened to boil over in their spiteful quarter-final win over the Netherlands, and you can imagine in a match like this that France will be looking to provoke them and send them over the edge. Argentina need to be smart, toe the line and let their football do the talking.
Can Antoine Griezmann be kept on a leash?
Understandably a lot of the attention, including in these pages, has been on the superstars leading the attacking line for these two sides, but don’t forget about the blokes behind them pulling the strings. For France, Griezmann has been simply superb in this tournament as a sort of fluid, all-action, roaming playmaker, creating more chances than any other player … except Messi, of course. He’s been compared to Zinedine Zidane and Michel Platini but also to the injured N’golo Kante for the way he’s broken up opposition raids. To cut off the supply to Mbappe, Giroud and Dembele, Argentina need to stop him.
Can Les Bleus shake off the ‘camel flu’?
Remarkably, COVID hasn’t been a factor at this World Cup, even though we seem to be in the middle of another surge – but there has been a bit of other stuff floating around Doha, and it seems to have seeped into the French camp. Adrien Rabiot missed their semi-final due to “flu-like symptoms” and watched from their hotel while Dayot Upamecano also had the bug, and sat on the bench, and Kingsley Coman is apparently in doubt with it too. They’d want to make sure it doesn’t spread any further – it’s the last thing you want to deal with before a final.
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