Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappe and a once-in-a-generation World Cup final

The rollercoaster battle between Argentina and France in Qatar produced one of the all-time great football matches

Lionel Messi holds up the trophy after Argentina defeated France on penalties in the World Cup final at Lusail Stadium in Qatar, on Sunday, December 18, 2022. AP

Argentina's Lionel Messi celebrates with teammates after beating France. AP

France's Kylian Mbappe walks past the trophy at the end of the match. AP

Argentina's Lionel Messi holds up the Golden Ball award for best player of the tournament. AP

Argentina celebrate victory at Lusail Stadium. Getty

Lionel Messi of Argentina kisses the trophy after beating France 4-2 on penalties. EPA

Argentina celebrate victory. AP

Argentina captain Lionel Messi celebrates with World Cup trophy. PA

Kylian Mbappe of France with his Golden Boot award for finishing as the tournament's top scorer. EPA

Argentina players celebrate after winning the World Cup final penalty shoot-out against France. Getty

Argentina players celebrate victory. Getty

Argentina's Lautaro Martinez and Lionel Messi celebrate after winning the World Cup. Reuters

Argentina's Leandro Paredes celebrates scoring the winning penalty against France. Getty

Argentina's Leandro Paredes celebrates scoring during the penalty shoot-out against France. Reuters

Argentina goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez saves from Kingsley Coman of France in the penalty shoot-out. Getty

Lionel Messi scores for Argentina in the penalty shoot-out. Getty

Emiliano Martinez of Argentina celebrates after saving Kingsley Coman's penalty. Getty

Kylian Mbappe completes his hat-trick from the spot to make it 3-3. Getty

Kylian Mbappe celebrates after scoring his, and France's, third goal. Getty

Lionel Messi scores Argentina's third goal. Getty

Lionel Messi celebrates scoring Argentina's third goal. Getty

Lionel Messi scores Argentina's third goal. Reuters

Lionel Messi celebrates scoring Argentina's third goal. PA

Argentina's Lionel Messi goes for a high challenge on Eduardo Camavinga of France. Getty

Lionel Messi celebrates with teammates after scoring Argentina's third. AFP

Argentina goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez is beaten by the penalty of France's Kylian Mbappe. Getty

Kylian Mbappe celebrates scoring France's second goal. PA

Argentina's Nicolas Otamendi fouls Randal Kolo Muani of France giving away a penalty. Getty

Kylian Mbappe volleys home France's second goal. Getty

Argentina attacker Angel Di Maria skips past the challenge of France's Antoine Griezmann. PA

Kylian Mbappe celebrates after scoring the first France goal. Getty

Kylian Mbappe scores France's first goal from the penalty spot. Reuters

Angel Di Maria celebrates scoring Argentina's second goal. Reuters

Argentina's Lionel Messi sends France goalkeeper Hugo Lloris the wrong way from the spot. Getty

France's Kylian Mbappe with Lionel Messi of Argentina. Getty

Angel Di Maria scores for Argentina in the first-half. Getty

France's Antoine Griezmann, Olivier Giroud and Adrien Rabiot after Argentina made it 2-0. PA

Argentina's Angel Di Maria celebrates after scoring with France goalkeeper Hugo Lloris on his knees. Reuters

Argentina's Nicolas Tagliafico and Randal Kolo Muani fight for the ball. AP

Angel Di Maria celebrates after scoring for Argentina. Getty

Lionel Messi is mobbed by Argentina teammates after scoring. Getty

France's Jules Kounde heads the ball. AP

Lionel Messi celebrates after scoring for Argentina. Getty

Argentina attacker Angel Di Maria earns a penalty after going down under the challenge of France's Ousmane Dembele. Getty

France's Olivier Giroud shakes hands with manager Didier Deschamps after being substituted in the first half. PA

Lionel Messi scores from the spot for Argentina. PA

Lionel Messi celebrates after scoring a first-half penalty for Argentina. Getty

France goalkeeper Hugo Lloris saves from Argentina's Julian Alvarez. AP

France manager Didier Deschamps, left, with his Argentina counterpart Lionel Scaloni before the game. AP

Argentina players before the match. AP

France players before the match. Getty

Matches like the 2022 World Cup final are what make the planet’s favourite sport so addictive. “I love football,” said the hero of a fabulous game and the most watchable player of the 21st century. His Argentina side had, at last, lifted the trophy he spent a glittering career chasing.

“I want a few more games as a world champion,” added Lionel Messi, overcome with second thoughts about previous declarations that he would step back from international football once the tournament was over.

His beaming manager, Lionel Scaloni, celebrating his own rollercoaster rise from novice to admired alchemist of an Argentina concocted from callow youngsters, ageing warriors and a single genius, went further. He will not say farewell to his captain willingly. Messi, who will turn 39 soon after the 2026 World Cup begins, has a place “reserved” for him there if he chooses, promised Scaloni.

Didier Deschamps, France’s losing manager will also be welcome to patrol the touchlines of North America at the next World Cup if the boss of the French Football Federation, Noel le Graet, has his wish. Deschamps’s longed-for Treble – after World Cup-winning captain in 1998, victorious manager in 2018 – slipped tantalisingly away in a penalty shoot-out. But the possibility that it has merely been postponed is alive.

Seldom has Deschamps looked so hassled and animated as he did over the first hour of Sunday’s epic ebb-and-flow, and then through a double French comeback, first from 2-0 down, and then from 3-2 in arrears.

Yet for all the stress – and even a physical injury: Deschamps hurt his thumb in some sort of impact with an object so badly during half-time he needed a bandage – France’s coach is hooked on the adrenalin of nights like these. “I’ll have a meeting in the new year,” said Deschamps of whether he stays on in a job he has done for more than a decade. It is his to extend if he wishes.

The temptations are many. France made a poor start to the final, Deschamps second-best to Scaloni. But France had also had a wretched lead-in to their defence of the title, injuries to Karim Benzema, Paul Pogba, N’Golo Kante, Lucas Hernandez and Christopher Nkunku testing the reactive instincts of Deschamps and presenting him with fresh, stimulating challenges.

He passed most of them. France may have lost the final on the tiebreaker shoot-out, but in the second of the two gripping hours of open play, he acted skilfully. France’s substitutions made an impact, and like Scaloni, Deschamps watched his superstar, three-goal Kylian Mbappe, respond to the mounting pressure.

By the end of the night, Deschamps had been presented with more evidence that a France national coach fishes in a wonderfully deep pool of emerging talent. Mbappe and his other game-changers, the substitutes used on the night, will all be still in their 20s when the next World Cup begins.

Players who now have fewer than 10 caps to their names are shaping up as fine support-acts for Mbappe. The last month has been quite an adventure for the likes of Randal Kolo Muani and Marcus Thuram, drafted in as late World Cup reserves, but central to the drama at the Lusail.

What France came up against was an Argentinian support-act equally worthy of Messi’s greatness. It was made up of the young and rapidly-promoted, such as Alexis Mac Allister, Julio Alvarez and Enzo Fernandez, and vital older allies like Angel Di Maria, 34.

Di Maria, picked to start after a tournament hampered by injury, earned the penalty for Messi’s opening goal, and, in a throwback to the distant past, provided the finish to a move initiated by Messi’s skillful use of the ball while on the turn. Precisely those elements, and those two players, won Argentina the Olympic gold medal in 2008 in Beijing.

Last summer in Rio de Janeiro, a Di Maria goal earned the Argentina of Messi their only Copa America title. Messi is may have been king of these spread-out successes, but Di Maria is his everlasting lucky charm.

In as little as ten days time, Mbappe and Messi will be together again in the capital of France, teammates fully expecting to win another French league title with Paris Saint-Germain, aiming for a Champions League success, as the club season abruptly imposes itself back on a calendar into which a winter World Cup was squeezed.

The unorthodox timing of the event turned out not to be a rude interruption. Qatar 2022 provided a higher quality of games overall than its predecessor. It had a higher ratio of the unpredictable – in Morocco’s stylish progress, in Japan’s ambushes on so-called heavyweight nations – but also emphasised the sharp differences between elite club football and its international cousin.

Argentina beat France in World Cup final: Player ratings

The elaborately-practicised drills and choreographed pressing that characterise so many successful club teams are conspicuous for their rarity in country-versus-country football. There, coaches have their players on site for so little time that such detailed rehearsal is impossible. In international football, you cannot reach for the chequebook and simply buy the best-fit player to suit a tactical plan.

The most polished, monied club teams will always have a slickness in their work that a national coach envies. But there are compensations. Messi may have been adored in Barcelona most of his working life, but the love of all of Argentina is felt more powerfully. Deschamps appreciates, even in defeat, that managing a gifted national team gives him a level of passionate support no other job can.

He also knows that whoever manages France at the next World Cup will have the blessing of a 27-year-old Mbappe. He must suspect, too, that even if Messi is still active, into his 40th year, a coronation like Sunday’s is unrepeatable. It will probably take a generation, at least, for another World Cup final as marvellous as that.