2022 FIFA World Cup final: Lionel Messi vs. Kylian Mbappe and everything else to know for Argentina vs. France

Argentina against France. Lionel Messi against Kylian Mbappe. The greatest of all time against the next in line. The storylines are endless. I’m Mike Goodman, and this is the Golazo Starting XI. 

Before we get to the good stuff, just a brief thanks to everyone for hanging out with us all month. The World Cup may be ending, but we’re not going anywhere. The beauty of soccer is that it never ends. Once the action is done in Qatar, we’ve got all the great club action coming up to cover — especially on Paramount+. Use offer code ALLYEAR now to get 50% off the annual plan. We’ve got UEFA club competitions, Serie A, NWSL, FA Women’s Super League and more just one click away.

And now, onto the show with the big final!

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⚽  The Forward Line

Argentina-France: Everything you need to know

Listen, the whole tournament has been building to this moment. So as you sip your morning coffee and get yourself fired up for a Sunday morning kickoff, let’s review the major storylines of this final.

1. Lionel Messi vs. Kylian Mbappe

Argentina’s Lionel Messi is impossibly good and France’s Kylian Mbappe is his most likely successor as the best player in the world. It’s a dynamic that’s playing out across this entire tournament. We’ve run the numbers and crunched the stats. The two of them — along with being arguably the best two players in the world — have simply been the best two players in this tournament. It is an embarrassment of riches when you consider they are on the same Paris Saint-Germain squad.

You can check the stats yourself, but the bottom line is that the two of them are tied for the lead with five goals each apiece. Messi is also tied for the lead in assists (3), with Mbappe (2) right behind him. And while obviously a World Cup final is about more than two players, it’s hard not look at this final as a changing of the guard. The soccer world has just spent 15 years obsessed with the rivalry between Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. But Ronaldo‘s self-sabotage this month has highlighted just how done we are with that rivalry. Messi has decisively come out on top, even if he doesn’t beat France. This final will pass the torch to whatever comes next.

2. Different approaches to building a championship-caliber squad

Both teams have been here before. France are the defending champions and have broken a curse that saw the last three teams that won the World Cup all crash out of in the group stage four years later. Argentina, meanwhile, lost the 2014 final to Germany. Of course, four years is a long time, and eight years is longer, so these teams look considerably different than they did before.

Argentina only have two players still around from 2014: Messi and Angel Di Maria. They don’t even have much holdover from the team four years ago that lost to France in a quarterfinal battle, save for defenders Nicholas Otamendi and Nicolas Tagliafico. But broadly, this Argentina team has found success by going young, featuring 22-year-old attacker Julian Alvarez and 21-year-old midfielder Enzo Fernandez. It’s a generation that grew up idolizing Messi and desperately want to win him the last missing piece of hardware for his trophy cabinet.

Most teams defending the crown like France don’t necessarily think they need to retool the roster, and that’s how some reigning champs end up flaming out along the way. But manager Didier Deschamps had those decisions taken out of his hands due the injuries. The midfield duo of Paul Pogba and N’Golo Kante were injured before the tournament started, star striker Karim Benzema, who didn’t play in 2018, was heavily featured in the qualifying cycle, defender Presnel Kimpembe and attacker Christopher Nkunku were all hurt on the eve of the tournament, and fullback Lucas Hernandez suffered a bad knee injury in the opening match. That all forced Deschamps to rely on a different group of players, including 22-year-old Aurelian Tchouameni in midfield and Lucas’ younger brother, Theo, who’s much more of an attacking threat, at left back. The results speak for themselves.

3. OK, so tell me who’s going to win

Great question. How about this answer: Nobody knows. We’ll make our picks below, but the oddsmakers think this is one of the hardest World Cup finals in history to call. France and Argentina were two of the pre-tournament favorites, with only Brazil having shorter odds heading into Qatar and now there is very little to separate them on the field.

🔗  Midfield Link Play

Time to celebrate the best of the World Cup

It’s been an unconventional World Cup to say the least. The winter schedule and the compressed timelines gave the entire competition a different feel. Not to mention the host location has — for better and worse — placed the spotlight increasingly on off-field issues. FIFA head Gianni Infantino managed to make one more headline as things wound down, bashing the idea of players making any kind of on-field protest. Though really, nothing will top his bizarre remarks to open the event last month. Still, from Brazil’s dancing, to Morocco’s penalties to one of the all-time biggest upsets, this tournament had it all. We get to do it again six months from now in Australia/New Zealand and three-and-a-half years from now in North America.

Now onto some links.

💰  The Back Line

Best bet

The final is upon, so let’s pick a champion. All odds courtesy of Caesars Sportsbook.

• Argentina vs. France, Sunday, 10 a.m. ET
  💰 THE PICK: Argentina (+160): I’m going with my heart. Look, the line is Argentina +160, Draw +210, France +180. Everybody thinks this match is going to be close no matter how you slice it. And at the end of the day, I’m just not betting against Messi. It’s consistently been my mantra all tournament long and I’m not backing off now. It’s worked so far. Messi finally gets the biggest prize in the sport. Make sure to follow SportsLine’s best bet on this matchup.