Argentina 2022: the night the story finally finished
A 3-3 final, a hat-trick that wasn't enough, and the trophy Lionel Messi had been chasing for sixteen years
Some matches you can summarize in a sentence. The 2022 World Cup final is not one of them. Even the people who watched it live still argue about which moment was its real climax. Was it Messi's first goal, a penalty that opened the scoring in the twenty-third minute? Was it Di María's second, a team move so clean it looked staged? Was it Mbappé's stoppage-time equalizer, two goals in ninety-seven seconds to drag France back from the dead? Was it Messi's goal in extra time, the one that seemed to settle it? Was it Mbappé's hat-trick penalty a minute later, the one that didn't? Was it Montiel's spot-kick at the very end?
Let me lay the whole thing out.
December 18, 2022. Lusail Stadium, Qatar. Argentina vs. France. The defending champions vs. the team chasing its third star, with Messi on one side and Mbappé on the other — the player who had defined the last decade against the player about to define the next.
Minute 23. Di María goes down in the box. Penalty to Argentina. Messi takes it. Goal. Argentina 1-0.
Minute 36. Di María's name again. Messi to Mac Allister to Álvarez to Di María, all on the run, finished into the bottom corner. Argentina 2-0. France has been outplayed for half an hour and has not had a single shot on goal.
Minute 80. Kylian Mbappé wins a penalty. Mbappé scores. France 1, Argentina 2. Suddenly there's air in the stadium again.
Minute 81. Ninety-seven seconds after his first goal, Mbappé scores from a volley off a Marcus Thuram pass. The second goal is one of the cleanest hits of the tournament. Argentina 2, France 2. The match — already a final, already a heavyweight — has turned into something nobody expected.
The remainder of regulation is two teams trying to find a winner and not quite finding one. Extra time begins.
Minute 108. Messi finishes from close range after a Lautaro Martínez shot is parried. Argentina 3-2. He has scored in every knockout match of this tournament. He has more World Cup goals than any Argentine in history.
Minute 118. A handball in the Argentine box. Mbappé takes the kick. Goal. Hat-trick in a World Cup final — the first one since Geoff Hurst in 1966. Argentina 3, France 3. The match goes to penalties.
The shootout:
| # | Shooter | Team | Result | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kylian Mbappé | France | ⚽ goal | 0–1 |
| 2 | Lionel Messi | Argentina | ⚽ goal | 1–1 |
| 3 | Kingsley Coman | France | ✕ saved by Martínez | 1–1 |
| 4 | Paulo Dybala | Argentina | ⚽ goal | 2–1 |
| 5 | Aurélien Tchouaméni | France | ✕ shot wide | 2–1 |
| 6 | Leandro Paredes | Argentina | ⚽ goal | 3–1 |
| 7 | Randal Kolo Muani | France | ⚽ goal | 3–2 |
| 8 | Gonzalo Montiel | Argentina | ⚽ goal — title-winner | 4–2 |
Up steps Gonzalo Montiel — a defender, the kid playing professional soccer four years earlier in Argentina's second division. He scores. Argentina 4, France 2. World Cup over.
Lionel Messi, fifteen years and seven months after his first international match, twelve years after his first World Cup, eight years after losing the 2014 final to Germany, lifts the trophy. He is named Golden Ball winner for the tournament. He becomes the only player ever to win the Golden Ball at two different World Cups (the other was 2014). Mbappé wins the Golden Boot with eight goals — including three in the final, which has not been done by a runner-up since World Cup finals were a thing. They embrace at the end. Both are 2026 World Cup contenders.
A few things to know if you didn't watch:
— Lionel Messi has played in five World Cups. That is more than any Argentine in history. He played his first one in 2006, when he was eighteen. He played his last one in 2022, when he was thirty-five. In between he won every club trophy that exists, eight Ballons d'Or, and one World Cup final he had previously lost. He scored thirteen World Cup goals in total, which is good for top five all-time.
— Mbappé is twenty-six right now. He has played in two World Cups — won the first (2018), nearly won the second (2022). 2026 will be his third. France has been to two finals and one semifinal in the last three tournaments. They are coming.
— Argentina's draw bracket was the hardest in the modern era of the tournament. They beat Mexico in the group stage, Australia in the Round of 16, the Netherlands in the quarterfinal (in a match so bitter and personal that it deserves its own post), Croatia in the semifinal, and France in the final. They became the first South American team to win a World Cup outside South America since Brazil in 2002.
The MLS bridge. Lionel Messi signed with Inter Miami of Major League Soccer in July 2023, seven months after lifting the trophy. The decision was the biggest moment for American soccer since Pelé came to the Cosmos in 1975. Messi has been playing his club football in the United States for almost three years now. When Argentina opens their World Cup defense on U.S. soil this summer, the defending champion's most important player is a Miami resident. The story of 2022 ended in Doha. The next chapter — and we don't know yet what it says — begins ten miles from his current home.
Tomorrow we'll do something different. All sixteen host cities, one post, a tour of the continent from MetLife to BC Place. If you're traveling to a match this summer, save it. If you're not, you'll know how to brag about your home stadium anyway.
See you then.
