The 2022 FIFA World cup has had its own share of controversies and tournament upsets and surprises. The 22nd edition of the World Cup was held in Qatar – a first for the Arab World. With 32 participating teams, the final was a sensational game that brought in many emotions and the whole scene was no less than climatic between the defending champion from the last world cup, France against Argentina.
Argentina had last won the world cup 36 years ago and given this was Lionel Messi’s last world cup with the team, the world and especially his fans globally were glued to the screen to see him lift the trophy. This match surely goes down as a breath-taking and powerful final for a FIFA world cup.
The journey
The initial journey for the team began with being in Group C out of the 8 total groups.
The top two teams in each group would advance to the top 16 teams. The only defeat Argentina faced in the knock-out rounds was with Saudi Arabia and soon recovered from these with back-to-back wins against Poland and Mexico. This helped them to finish as winner of Group C.
To reach the quarter finals stage, Argentina beat Australia 2-1 in their Round of 16 tie. Moving ahead to beat Netherlands 4-3 in a penalty shootout for the quarter final tie. This is where the team progressed to the semi-final stage where they played Croatia, winning the game to head to the finals with the defending champions of the last world cup, France.
Argentina won the semi-finals 3-0 against Croatia and Messi had been a top player throughout this experience scoring on multiple occasions.
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The finals
This sure wasn’t for the faint of heart. Last few deciding minutes of the gripping Football World Cup final were a phenomenal experience of the game that offered drama, emotions, excitement, tensions, and a climax that brought joy and togetherness. No matter which team you were supporting, the drama was high. With the scores equalizing at 3-3, thanks to the French player Kylian Mbappe scoring incredible goals just a few mins apart, the match was a draw and went into penalty shootouts.
A FIFA world cup final leading to a penalty shoot out to decide which team wins – could there be anything more electrifying? The world watched on the edge of their seats as Lionel Messi got this shot in and the absolute mindful yet brilliant saves by Emiliano Martinez – the goalkeeper for Argentina, led to the team winning the shoot-out by 4-2.
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Team wins
A sight to behold by the global fans of Football was Lionel Messi lifting the trophy as the captain of the Argentina National Football team, becoming one of the greatest players of football who has every football title win under his name now.
-Messi was also voted the tournament’s Best Player and awarded the Golden Ball.
–Emiliano Martinez was awarded the Golden Glove for being tournaments best goalkeeper, and
–Enzo Fernandez was awarded the tournament’s best Young Player Award for the tournament.
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Victory parade and a grand welcome home
Argentina has been on one party mode since the dramatic match ended with the country winning in a penalty shootout against France. Grand, spontaneous, and massive celebrations lasting all day and night broke out in the country, Argentina, and across global cities and towns chanting Messi’s name in joy.
Not only was this an action-packed lively match, but it will also go down in history as one of the greatest FIFA world cup finals that saw one of the most loved players of the world, Messi – lifting the world cup achieving his lifelong dream.
Jubilant Argentinian people were on the roads dancing, singing songs, playing instruments, chanting Messi’s name and celebrating, seen with tears of joy wearing their national team’s jersey with colours -blue and white taking over the streets. The celebrations were of pure, uninhibited joy and togetherness that the win had brought to them in times of an economic turndown. There was a flood of people sporting a Number 10 – Messi jersey across the globe showing how grand this one player’s impact has been and how deeply his fans supported his team to lift the world cup. His Instagram post on the country’s world cup win has become the most liked post on any social media platform that has thousands of comments from around the world quoting him as the G.O.A.T – Greatest Player of All Times in Football.
The government in Argentina declared 20th December 2022 as a national bank holiday to allow their countrymen and women to celebrate the win.
The victory parade saw the players themselves seated at the top of the bus moving through Buenos Aires’ Plaza de la Republica, dancing and singing along with the crowd to enjoy their win. This grand welcome to the team was unfortunately cut short when close to 4 million people showed up to welcome the team and celebrate (estimated as per BBC). The winning team members had to be evacuated by helicopters due to massive crowds showing on the victory parade.
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Team Management
Let’s not forget that behind the team – there is another team that is the backbone of the players.
Their team managers, coaches, trainers, medical experts, marketing leads, sponsorship, and partnership experts to travel managers and so many others are all collectively leading the team and its players towards a win.
Their role is as crucial as is of the players to get the team close to winning. For Argentina, their team manager Lionel Scaloni who took the over the Argentina football team in 2018 has led Messi to lift a couple of international titles in the past few years. Lionel Scaloni with his expert coaches and staff has helped the team to be stronger, fearless in tense games and most of has enhanced players skills, abilities, physical and mental health.
No doubt under his guidance and leadership the team has won the FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar.
If there is a key message to take away from this, as every Argentina country man and woman have mentioned in their interviews to multiple channels and social platforms, it is that when we are united as one towards a common goal, nothing is unachievable.
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