2022 World Cup final: Lionel Messi’s last chance to emulate Diego Maradona

As with every Fifa World Cup, much of the tournament chatter centres around which nation will lift the trophy and which players will shine on the biggest stage of all. And at Qatar 2022 there’s been one player in particular that the pundits and fans have talked about more than any other: Argentina captain Lionel Messi.

When Messi announced in October that this would be his fifth and final World Cup, the football writers around the globe focussed on how the 35-year-old had never won the sport’s biggest prize and it was “now or never”. Even Messi admitted that Qatar represented the last chance he would have of fulfilling his ambition of winning the World Cup with Argentina. “My last opportunity to make my dream, our dream, a reality,” he said.

After inspiring his nation in Qatar, he now has his date with destiny when Argentina take on holders France in Sunday’s final at the Lusail Stadium – in what will be his last World Cup match for his country.

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Messi has come close before, when Argentina lost the 2014 final to Germany. And now he’s just one victory away from achieving that “dream” and emulating another legendary Argentine No.10, Diego Maradona, who captained La Albiceleste to World Cup glory at Mexico 86.

Can he complete the clean sweep?

During his long and glittering career Messi has won almost everything – he can look in his trophy cabinet and find seven Ballon d’Ors and winners’ medals from four Champions Leagues, ten Spanish La Liga titles, three Fifa Club World Cups and the Copa América with Argentina last year. There is, however, one big space left to fill in the cabinet – and that’s for the elusive World Cup winners’ medal.

With five goals so far in Qatar, he could “complete the clean sweep”, said BBC Sport. That would be lifting the trophy and winning the golden boot for top goalscorer and the golden ball for the tournament’s best player. The fact he has never won a World Cup – unlike compatriot Maradona or Brazil’s Pele – has “sometimes counted against him in debates about the best of all time”, but he has “a chance to remedy that” in Sunday’s final.

Messi has been “collecting records” in this tournament, said Rob Dawson on ESPN. Against Croatia in the 3-0 semi-final victory not only did he score his 11th World Cup goal, passing Gabriel “Batigol” Batistuta on Argentina’s all-time list, but he also equalled Germany’s Lothar Matthaus as the joint record appearance maker (25) in men’s World Cup history. Barring a last-minute injury, he will break that record on Sunday in his last World Cup match. “None of that will matter”, though, if this tournament “doesn’t end with a World Cup winners’ medal on his CV”, Dawson added.

‘Settle the GOAT debate once and for all’

He may be in his twilight years, but against Croatia in the semi-final the “diminutive No.10” proved that he is “not normal”, said Mark Doyle on Goal. After “tormenting” Josko Gvardiol on the right flank and cutting the ball back for Julian Alvarez to score his second of the night, the fans behind the goal “bowed before their god” once more. “And why wouldn’t they? What Messi has already achieved in Qatar is super-human.”

Messi has the “farewell he wished for” – a “goodbye” as far as Argentina is concerned, said Sid Lowe in The Guardian. “Still, what a way to go.” Of course, “it is not done yet” – the greatest game of all awaits, it is “colossal”. But even getting there “felt a little like something had been won”, like some “realisation” had been reached. “By Messi and about Messi.”

While his “nemesis” Cristiano Ronaldo “contemplates a future without a World Cup medal, and possibly a club no one has heard of”, Messi is just one win away from “settling the GOAT debate once and for all”, said Ben Snowball on Eurosport. For all his “dazzling artistry through the years”, he needs this one to “banish Pele and Maradona from the conversation”.

In his best “deep narrator voice”, Snowball captured the magnitude of what Messi could achieve at the Lusail Stadium: “The world stops. For one man’s search for destiny. His fans call him the GOAT. His haters call him Pessi. So can he prove them wrong and claim the one major trophy that has eluded him? **and breathe** Yes, Lionel Messi will go for World Cup glory.”

Sunday’s Fifa World Cup final between Argentina and France will kick-off at 3pm GMT. The match is live in the UK on both the BBC and ITV.