Qatar World Cup 2022: Another History Made

By Praise Olorunfemi

Intriguing, enthralling, captivating, and exciting are some of the many adjectives that can be used to describe the final match of the Qatar World 2022, which took place on 18th December 2022, at the Lusail Stadium in Qatar. The last game to determine the current king of the world of football for the next four years was between France and Argentina. There are quite a several very interesting things about the Qatar World Cup 2022. From the scandalous reported events surrounding the building of the 7 iconic new stadiums and the renovation of Khalifa International Stadium to allegations of human rights violations to the amount spent on the whole budget of the hosting of the world cup, almost running to $300 billion (how much is the Nigerian budget) in estimation. It is by far the most expensive in the history of football. This piece is very much inadequate to exhaust the list of interesting and attention-grabbing things in the Qatar World Cup. However, it will attempt to bring useful information on the just concluded showpiece.

The Final Match

After, beating the “Atlas Lion”, the Moroccan team, France had to compete with Argentina for the crowning of the king of football for the next four years. Unfortunately for the French, they lost the crown to the rooting Argentine team. Infallibly, the match was a breathtaking event to watch, and as a football lover, watching the game in a reclining state is almost not possible, in fact, not possible. The goal’s portal was yanked from a penalty by Argentina’s Lionel Messi just 23 minutes into the game. At 36 minutes, about 13 minutes intervals, Angel Di Maria scored a second goal against France. The first half of the match was very unpleasant for the French team, however, in the 79th minute of the game, Otamendi of Argentina fouled Kolo Muani in the Argentine’s box, which saw the awarding of a penalty to the French team. Mbappé dispatched the penalty making it the 6th goal in the tournament for the French striker. Some seconds later, Lionel Messi was dispossessed of the ball by Kingsley Coman of France, who sent it to Marcus Thuram who sent it to Kylian Mbappé, who sent it into the net at 90 seconds interval from his first goal in the match. Mbappé’s 7th goal in the Qatar world cup 2022, and second goal in the match brought the game to a tie.

With the game into the extra time, in the 108th minute, Lionel Messi’s rebound crossed the French goal line and broke the tie. About 9 minutes later, after Lionel Messi’s tiebreaker, Gonzalo Montiel’s handball in box 18 led to a penalty against Argentina. Mbappé steps up to take the penalty and the result was the same as the first penalty he took. The match then headed to a penalty shoot-out.

In the shoot-out, the French team lost two penalties, and Argentina converted all their spot kicks, winning them the match and consequently the tournament.

Phenomenal Events in the world cup

Now, looking at the category of supporters, it is interesting to note, that from observations, those who supported France were based on two factors: they were either a fan of Cristiano Ronaldo and will possibly not be able to argue about their G.O.A.T in comparison to Lionel Messi, which to a large extent, has answered the question of “Who is the real G.O.A.T?”. The second factor is that of the 23-man squad of the French team, about 15 of them are of African heritage. Also, the Argentine supporters are mostly fans of Lionel Messi.

Other note worthy facts include the followings: The final match between France and Argentina is the 21st final to be played in the history of the FIFA World Cup competition, although the competition has occurred 22 times. This same match entered the group of the world cup finals with the second-highest number of goals scored, with a total of six goals.

The highest number of goals scored in a world cup final is 7, and that was in 1958 when Brazil won the match against Sweden 5-2. The 2022 world cup is also the third world cup final to end in a penalty shoot-out, 1994 Brazil v Italy, Italy v France 2006, and France v Argentina 2022.

Qatar world cup 2022, saw the second hat-trick to be scored since Geoff Hurst, of England, did that in 1966, in a final match against Germany, Kylian Mbappé has replicated it after 56 years. This same match, also made France the only team to lose two world cup finals in a penalty shoot-out, Italy v France 2006 5-3, and France v Argentina 2022.

Lionel Scaloni, the Argentine coach, is the youngest coach to lift the FIFA World Cup at age 44.

Kylian Mbappé is the second-youngest goalscorer in the history of the FIFA World Cup to score the most goals, Pele of Brazil is the youngest when he appeared in 1958 during a match against Sweden at a time he was 17 years old. The above is just a short list of notable things to note about the FIFA World Cup.

A word of hope for Africa

With the final matches played, the Qatar World Cup 2022 came was rounded off with a closing ceremony, which saw the performance of Nigerian pop star Davido. With how the African team has shown incredible performance in the last World Cup, there’s hope that the paradigm will shift, the next world cup carrier might be an African team, till then, see you at the next world cup.