By Lee Jacobs
In the whole World Cup your country’s love is on the line. There is so much pressure on all the players. On Sunday, December 18 the 2022 World Cup finale took place in Qatar. It was Argentina VS France, both teams were very deserving of the win but one of them had to lose, disappointing their country.
As the game started off Argentina dominated the game. In the 20th minute Ángel Di María got tripped in the penalty box and was awarded a penalty kick. Lional Messi took the kick bottom right, and scored. The game went on with Argentina controlling play and then in the 35th minute they scored again. This time instead of a penalty kick, Alexis Mac Allister crossed it in front of the net and Ángel Di María kicked it in. Everybody thought it was just going to be a simple easy win for Argentina but little did they know what was going to happen. In the 79th minute Randal Muani, a French player, got fouled in the box awarding them a penalty kick just like Argentina. Kylian Mbappe took the kick and scored, bottom left. It was then 2-1 Argentina. Then just 2 minutes later, with less than 10 minutes left in the game, France scored again with an amazing shot from Mbappe, making it 2-2.
The game then proceeded into 30 minutes of overtime where Messi scored off a rebound from the goalie. Argentina fans breathed easy again for about 7 minutes until France was awarded another penalty kick. This time it was for a hand ball in the box. Mbappe took it again and hit it to the top left corner for a goal.
When the 30 minutes were up the score was still 3 all so the two teams went into a penalty shoot out. Each team assigned 5 of their players to take a penalty kick and whoever made more goals would win. France made their first one and so did Argentina. The next round France's shot was saved by the goalie and Argentina made theirs. Then France missed the goal all together and Argentina scored yet again. Everyone thought that it might be over for France but they had made comebacks so many times already that no one could be sure. Argentina went on and scored the next goal making it so that if the French player missed his next shot then his team would lose. However France did not give up and made their penalty kick. But the fact of the matter was: if Argentina made their next shot they would win the whole thing. Only a few minutes back Gonzalo Montiel had been the villain by giving away the equalizing penalty to Mbappe, yet Montiel stepped up to the penalty spot, took a deep breath and sank a shot into the bottom left corner. Argentina fans erupted, France fans sank in their seats as the whole Argentina team celebrated. The Argentinian soccer team are now the world champions.