What a World Cup!

The World Cup concluded with an outstanding, memorable final that saw Lionel Messi finally lift the trophy.  It's crazy to think that Argentina started the tournament by losing to Saudi Arabia in that very stadium, but I actually think that loss was a good thing.  It lit a fire under their asses and really set the stage for their championship run.

I'll admit to being skeptical about both the choice of Qatar and the late World Cup.  I wasn't sure if playing the tournament in the middle of the European club season would be a good or bad thing.  I ended up being pleasantly surprised, though.  The players were in midseason form, so the quality of play was very high.  And the condensed schedule actually worked out better than I thought it would.

We still had plenty of surprises, too.  Morocco became the first African team to reach the semifinals.  They also became the first Arab team to make it that far, which was incredibly fitting at the first World Cup in the Middle East.

Saudi Arabia pulled off that massive upset on the third day of the tournament, knocking off the eventual champions, but they weren't the only team who punched above their weight against one of the marquee teams.  Cameroon beat Brazil.  France lost to Tunisia and had problems with Australia.  Canada outplayed Belgium in a 1-0 loss.  Beating Germany wasn't enough, so Japan beat Spain, too.  The United States was the better team in a 0-0 draw against England.  This was the first World Cup since 1994, in fact, where nobody won all three group games.

And let's talk about how fantastic the final round of group play was!  I can't recall any World Cup that's seen a crazier set of games than what we saw over those four days.  The standings in virtually every group were changing by the minute!  Teams were celebrating goals in the other game and acting like they won even if they lost (or acting like they lost even if they won, but not by enough).

It wasn't just the usual suspects, either, which was another pleasant surprise.  Japan finished first in a group that included Spain and Germany.  Second-ranked Belgium (the most overrated team in the world) didn't get out of the group, either (behind the third- and fourth-place finishers).  Three teams from Asia and two from Africa reached the knockout stage, with two winning their group!

While I often get on FIFA for the stupidity of how their rankings are determined and their reliance on them despite those flaws, seeding the entire tournament based on the rankings sure proved to be the right move.  It created well-balanced groups and probably contributed to that wild final group day.  It also showed that there's some really good soccer being played in places besides Europe and South America...just in time for the 2026 World Cup, when 16 more teams will be invited to the party.

Speaking of 2026, FIFA loved the final day of group matches so much that they're now talking about completely revamping the entire format and not doing 16 groups of three, primarily to maintain the simultaneous final group matches.  There'll be plenty of discussion about that, and I'm curious to see what the final decision is.  It's typical FIFA to not think about these things until well after the fact, though.

Just when we thought that manic finish to group play wouldn't be topped, we got to the knockout round.  Those two quarterfinal games on Dec. 9 might've been the two craziest soccer games I've ever seen back-to-back!  Brazil scored in the first half of extra time, only for Croatia to equalize late and win in penalty kicks.  Then, in the second game, Argentina blew a 2-0 lead with 10 minutes left against the Netherlands before winning in PKs (sound familiar?).

And where do I begin about that final?  I hesitate to call games "the best ever" right away because recency bias is definitely a thing, but it's hard to argue with that claim.  Argentina was rolling, up 2-0 and completely dominating.  Then Mbappe scored twice in 90 seconds!  Messi scored in extra time and we thought that was it.  Only it wasn't.  In PKs, though, Argentina got the job done and got Messi the one trophy he was missing.

Messi rightfully won the Golden Ball as tournament MVP, but he wasn't the only star who played like one.  Mbappe became just the second player ever to score a hat trick in a World Cup final.  Luka Modric reminded us that he's one of the best players on the planet and, even though we only got a limited glimpse of him, Neymar's brilliance was on full display.  Christian Pulisic had a hand in all three American goals, scoring the game-winner against Iran and assisting on the other two.  Cody Gakpo of the Netherlands became a star before our eyes.

Let's not forget what France did, either.  They broke the spell of defending champions failing to get out of the group stage and went all the way to the final, becoming the first nation to make back-to-back finals since Brazil played in three straight from 1994-2002.  After they went down 2-0, they could've folded.  But they didn't.  They fought back twice and nearly became the first team in 60 years to repeat as World Cup champions.  Mbappe's a bona fide star, though, and we definitely haven't seen the last of Les Bleues.

In the end, though, Argentina proved to be the best team, and their title is well-deserved.  Alexi Lalas said it best in the postgame show.  France is a good team with one really great player.  Argentina is a great team with one really great player.  They wanted to win in for their captain, but Messi couldn't do it alone, and they had the talent around him to achieve that goal.  That's what proved to be the difference in the final.

This will go down in history as Messi's World Cup, though.  And you know what?  That's OK.  There's been a lot of talk about "Is he the greatest player ever?"  You couldn't reasonably make that claim unless/until he won a World Cup, however.  Now he has.  And suddenly, Argentina went from not being able to win the big one (they lost three straight World Cup/Copa America finals from 2014-16) to lifting the Copa America and the World Cup within a span of a year and a half.  And Messi, for his part, became, along with Angel DiMaria, one of the first two men's players to win both Olympic gold and the World Cup.

He said that isn't retiring from the National Team, so it's possible we'll see a 39-year-old Messi at a sixth World Cup in North America three-and-a-half years from now.  But, in a way, I kinda wish this was his last game in the white and sky blue stripes.  Because there's no way to top what Argentina just accomplished.  And talk about bookends to your international career!  Olympic gold as a 17-year-old, a World Cup 18 years later!

Argentina's now won three World Cups.  The first was in 1978 at home.  The second was in 1986 with Diego Maradona, the greatest player of his generation.  The third in 2022 with Lionel Messi, the greatest player of his.  Talk about a perfect ending, if this is indeed the end!