By: AB G
This year’s World Cup, taking place in Lusail, Qatar may be many players’ last World Cup, including famed Argentine soccer player Lionel Messi.
The World Cup is a global event held every four years, and winning it is of great importance, it completes a soccer career.
Lionel Messi, an Argentinian football player, has almost come to the end of his spectacular career. Messi has won eight Ballon D’or, a French award that is awarded by voting on who deserves it, and five golden boots, awarded to whoever has the most goals. As you can tell, Messi is a very successful player, but he has one more chance to win the world cup, an award that many footballers dream of having. Messi will soon be retiring as his body can not put up with running miles each game, the average distance a professional footballer runs in a game is between six to eight and a half miles. Retirement happens usually around thirty-three to thirty-seven years old, and Messi is now in that range. Lionel Messi even suffered an Achilles injury two weeks before the World Cup; he doesn’t want to get injured even more.
Argentina is now participating in the finals against France, the defending champions of the World Cup. In Argentina and France’s head-to-head, Argentina has won six games while France has won three, and they have had three ties. This World Cup match holds a lot of value because if France wins, they will be the first to win two World Cups in a row since 1962, on the other hand, if Argentina wins, Messi will most likely retire on a good note and complete his career with some new hardware to add to his collection.
This final game was a battle, it went into penalty kicks after overtime. France’s Mbappe scored a hat trick, 3 goals in one game, he practically saved the game. At the end, Argentina win 4-2 in penalty kicks winning the world cup. Argentina’s President Alberto Fernández tweeted: “Thanks to the players and coaching team. They are the example that we should not give up.
That we have great people and a great future.” Everyone considered this final game as the “best world cup final in history.”
Sources: https://www.fifa.com/fifaplus/en/articles/hugo-lloris-france-captain-fifa-world-cup-qatar-2022
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballon_d%27Or
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lionel_Messi
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/26/sports/soccer/messi-argentina-mexico.html