Argentina won the title of FIFA World Cup 2022 by defeating France 4-2 in the penalties shootouts held at the Lusail Stadium, in Qatar on Sunday.
The match went into the penalty shootouts after the game ended in the 3-3 draw in the extra time of 30 minutes.
Argentina made a flying start after Lionel Messi scored a goal against France in the 23rd minute of the first half. They doubled the score when Angel Di Maria made another goal in the 36th minute.
France equalized the score after Kylian Mbappe scored two goals consecutively in the 80th and 81st minute of the second half.
The match went for an extra time of 30 minutes after the match ended in a 2-2 tie in the allotted 90 minutes. None of the teams made any goals in the first half of the extra time.
Argentina took the lead against France 3-2 after Lionel Messi scored another goal in the 109th minute. The match turned out to be further nail-biting to look at after Mbappe scored another goal in the 118th minute equalizing the goal 3-3.
Argentina’s Messi has won the golden ball. This is his second time to receive the golden ball. Earlier in 2014, he had won the golden ball title. Similarly, Irene Fernandez was declared the best player of the match. Fernandez, 21, scored a goal against Mexico in the group stage match.
Argentina had defeated Mexico 2-0 in that match. Likewise, Kylian Mbappe won the golden boot. He scored a total of eight goals in the FIFA World Cup 2022.
Earlier, France booked berth in the final for the second time in a row by defeating Morocco 2-0 in the semi-final on Wednesday night.
Argentina entered the final by defeating Croatia on Tuesday night. Prior to this, both Argentina and France won the world cup two times each.
France are the reigning champions and the bookmakers’ favorites to win the tournament in Qatar.
France won the world cup title for the first time in 1998 by defeating Brazil and Croatia in 2018 for the second time.
Similarly, Argentina defeated Netherlands in 1978 and Germany in 1986 to win the world cup title. They lost to Germany in 1990 and 2014 in the finals. They had also reached the final in the first world cup. This is the sixth time Argentina reached the final.
Similarly, France faced a defeat in the final prior to this. They had lost to Italy in 2006. This is the fourth time, France have reached the final.
These two teams are meeting in the world cup for the third time. In the first meeting, Argentina defeated France 2-1 in the group stage match in 1978.
France and Argentina had met in the round of 16 in the last world cup (2018) in which France defeated Argentina 4-3. Both the teams have lost one match each.
In the first match of the group stage match, Argentina had lost to Saudi Arabia. Similarly, France had lost to Tunisia in the final match of the group stage match.
In the Round of 16, France defeated Poland and Argentina beat Australia. France had defeated England and Argentina routed Netherlands in the quarter-finals.
In the semifinals, France defeated Morocco 2-0 and Argentina routed Croatia 3-0.
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