{"id":161907,"date":"2022-12-19T04:09:05","date_gmt":"2022-12-19T04:09:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/qatar-world-cup-ends-with-greatest-final-and-a-coronation-for-lionel-messi-world-cup-2022\/"},"modified":"2022-12-19T04:09:05","modified_gmt":"2022-12-19T04:09:05","slug":"qatar-world-cup-ends-with-greatest-final-and-a-coronation-for-lionel-messi-world-cup-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/qatar-world-cup-ends-with-greatest-final-and-a-coronation-for-lionel-messi-world-cup-2022\/","title":{"rendered":"Qatar World Cup ends with greatest final and a coronation for Lionel Messi | World Cup 2022"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A<\/span><\/span>fter 12 years, shredded schedules and a whirl of geopolitics; after death and ghosts and suffering; after armbands, hard power, the Davos in the desert vibe; after 64 games of the Qatar 2022 World Cup, the Lusail Stadium dished up a purely sporting surprise.<\/span><\/p>\n

This was the greatest Fifa World Cup final. It was also a third World Cup victory for Argentina, who beat France on penalties at the end of a wildly oscillating 3-3 draw.<\/p>\n

More tellingly, it was also a kind of coronation, belatedly, for the greatest footballer of the age, probably of any age, the mooching 35-year-old mobile brain Lionel Messi, a thousand games into his astonishing career.<\/p>\n

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\nQuick Guide<\/span><\/p>\n

Qatar: beyond the football<\/h4>\n

<\/svg><\/span>show<\/span><\/span><\/summary>\n

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This is a World Cup like no other. For the last 12 years the Guardian has been reporting on the issues surrounding Qatar 2022, from corruption and human rights abuses to the treatment of migration workers and discriminatory laws. The best of our journalism is gathered on our dedicated Qatar: Beyond the Football home page for those who want to go deeper into the issues beyond the pitch.<\/p>\n

Guardian reporting goes far beyond what happens on the pitch. Support our investigative journalism today.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/svg>Photograph: Caspar Benson<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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This was an emotional overload, a game that seemed to have been won at least four times over 120 minutes before it finally was with the last kick of the tournament. Even here there was a twist. This World Cup final was supposed to come down to a meeting of genius, to the Messi-Kylian Mbapp\u00e9 dynastic arm wrestle. It did in many ways. Mbapp\u00e9 scored the first hat-trick in a men’s World Cup final since Geoff Hurst in 1966 and still lost.<\/p>\n

But the game also came down at the death to good old-fashioned malandro<\/em> gamesmanship, embodied by the chest-puffing antics of Argentina’s goalkeeper Emiliano Mart\u00ednez, who chucked the ball away, advanced on the French kickers, almost screwed himself into the ground after each unsuccessful kick, and at one point had to be shoved back by the referee .<\/p>\n

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As Gonzalo Montiel’s winning kick billowed the net, a beautifully soft moment before the night dissolved into a wave of static, Messi was buried in the center circle under a knot of blue and white.<\/p>\n

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