Today, this game was everything. These teams produced arguably the best World Cup final of all time, one that ended appropriately with the game’s greatest player, Lionel Messi, finally winning a World Cup, with the entire world watching and two of the sport’s biggest stars and club teammates at Paris Saint-Germain facing off head-to-head for the title.
When it came to GOAT discussions, that trophy was frequently the one mark against him, as if failing to win it somehow negated all of his club’s and his personal milestones. That trophy is the only one that requires endless luck to win.
Such is the variance and luck across the seven games you’d need to navigate in order to win it, the sport is littered with greats who never even got to play at a World Cup, let alone win one. Because of his misfortune or the simple fact that they came up against a stronger team, there were times when it seemed impossible for him to win. But in the end, 11 is better than one, right?
Even though they could have fallen apart when Kylian Mbappe erased Argentina’s 2-0 lead in just 93 seconds toward the end of the second half, he stepped up and answered the call time and time again. They persisted in pushing forward and didn’t let the sudden changes in momentum stop them.