The Qatar 2022 final will always be remembered and football will not find a better opportunity to advertise, if there is still someone clueless around the world.
This Argentina-France game did not lack a comma, a storm of uncertainty, irrepressible emotions and a wonderful aroma of old football.
It will be analyzed in a thousand ways, statistics will rain down and
big data
will bring us surprising minutiae, details that can only be detected under the microscope of football entomologists, analyzes that will break down the course of the final and try to explain the inexplicable, because this match preferred to be fiercely human.
It already figures by right among the unforgettable ones in history.
The strictest will find more than enough reasons to complain.
France disappointed for 70 minutes, without a game, without resources and without a soul.
Rarely has a team strayed so far from its true potential.
When he wins, which is common on the other hand, his false pragmatism is praised.
There is no selection with more and better players.
Benzema and Nkunku missed the World Cup, Lucas Hernández was injured and Ngolo Kanté and Pogba could not make it either, a bleeding that did not alter the general perception: France has plenty of great players, but it lacks greatness.
It is a greedy team.
And even so, he was one shot away from victory, which was saved by Emiliano Martínez
in
the last minute of extra time.
Whoever wants to read the final from the errors will have abundant material, but will forget the animal nature of soccer, a beast that has no objection to becoming ungovernable.
Nobody better than Argentina to prove it.
He deserved the victory in his precious initial hour, against a passive rival, prisoner of an alarming laziness, apparently surrendered.
The excitement, the energy, the tactical resources and the brilliance belonged to the Argentines, impeccable in their performance.
A lane victory was guessed, product of the imbalance between a team that was losing its life at all times and another attacked by reluctance.
Until then, he highlighted the harmonious soccer of Argentina and the perplexity produced by the infamous French version.
Mbappé, who came to steal the story from Messi, left.
He represented in the first person the failure of his team.
How to describe such an uneven final as historic?
Because soccer decided not to have a boss, or homeland.
He reclaimed his anarchist streak, which he has too.
Two errors by Otamendi in the same play acted like a cluster grenade in the match.
Mbappé took advantage of the Argentine central defender's penalty to emerge from wherever he was and the final entered one of the most powerful emotional delusions in the history of the World Cup.
It became clear that Messi could not pay off his debt to the World Cups, or that of the World Cups to Messi, without drama.
Soccer saved the Argentine genius the maximum amount of suffering and glory.
He was written in the stars.
Messi's fate in the World Cup could by no means be easy, from the first to the last game.
Deschamps rolled the dice and began to sow the field with new players, all powerful, frontal and seasoned.
A portrait also of the France of our days.
Except for goalkeeper Lloris, the rest of the Frenchmen who finished the match were of African or Antillean origin.
They defended the national flag with courage and passion.
His reaction and the anguished Argentine resistance were emotional, in the midst of the storm unleashed by Mbappé, author of the sensational tying goal.
From that moment on, the final was pure fire, a fantastic representation of football's multitude of facets and indomitable character.
Yes, it seemed that Scaloni delayed the changes too long, but he also adjusted the team in extra time, when the exuberance of the French players threatened to destroy the fatigued Argentina team.
Extra time rescued Argentina, but did not destroy France.
A gigantic final emerged from a runaway match, unforgettable for a thousand reasons and for its final corollary.
The World Cup, which usually rewards soccer stars at the height of their careers, reserved this time for him the place that a wonderful 35-year-old player deserved: Leo Messi.
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