FIFA World Cup Final 2022: How Argentina acutely finessed France’s faults – tactical analysis

The 2022 FIFA World Cup delivered some glittering games of football and highly memorable footballing moments. One of the more memorable moments may have been Saudi Arabia’s shock 2-1 win over Argentina at Lusail Stadium in both teams’ opening group stage fixture. That game happened just under four weeks ago. Now, it may seem as though it occurred in another lifetime, as this past Sunday’s World Cup Final in that same stadium saw Argentina claim their third-ever FIFA World Cup trophy, beating France on penalties following a 3-3 draw that gave us everything a game of this magnitude is hyped up to deliver, and more.

Former Barcelona star Lionel Messi finally got his hands on football’s most iconic trophy, putting himself undisputedly up there alongside Diego Maradona in the echelons of Argentinian football history. The legendary attacker had little if nothing at all to prove but still, he’s managed to give himself one more boost in the neverending GOAT debate following Sunday’s World Cup Final in which he scored twice to help his nation to their first World Cup triumph since 1986.

Prior to the final, another of Argentina’s football greats, Mario Kempes who helped La Albiceleste to win their first World Cup trophy in 1978, compared Messi to Johan Cruyff and Alfredo Di Stefano when calling him: “a king without a crown” — referring to the little genius’ glaring lack of a World Cup winner’s medal in his trophy cabinet.

Kempes also clarified he felt: “Messi doesn’t need to win the World Cup to prove something. It’s Argentina that needs it.” In any event, Messi now has his crown and Argentina — a mighty football nation — can put their long wait for the beautiful gold trophy to make its way back to Buenos Aires behind them following Sunday’s World Cup Final.

While Messi scored two in Sunday’s game, with former PSG teammate Ángel Di María scoring the second of Argentina’s three goals, he was very nearly upstaged by clubmate Kylian Mbappé from rival side France, with the 23-year-old (who’ll turn 24 on Tuesday) bagging a hat-trick to keep his nation fighting for a second straight World Cup victory.

Mbappé scored two quickfire goals at the end of the second half of normal time to claw France back into the game out of nowhere after failing to threaten Argentina for the vast majority of the game, trailing Argentina 2-0 with just 10 minutes left on the clock. Messi put his side back into the lead in extra time but once more, Mbappé refused to be beaten and ensured the game went the full distance.

Ultimately, France lost on penalties and La Albiceleste emerged victorious from a game that ended up being far more exciting than it had looked like becoming for most of normal time. The beauty of football — special moments from special players can turn a seemingly trivial end to the tournament into an instant classic.

Indeed, Messi is the one who ends up taking home the big one this time around but from a tactical perspective, the game centred around what was going on with Mbappé — for both sides. In a way, this game was a symbolic passing of the torch from one generation to the next, despite Messi’s victory, as Mbappé delivered a hell of a performance for the losing side and was a more central figure to the game in terms of how both teams’ respective tactics often hinged on what he was doing, which we’ll provide some analysis of in this tactical analysis piece.

Our tactical analysis aims to provide some extensive insight into how this game played out from both sides from a tactical perspective. We’ll specifically look at how France’s approach centred around star player Mbappé, as well as how Argentina attempted to deal with the 23-year-old PSG star and exposed the major weaknesses in his game during Sunday’s World Cup Final.

Lineups

Let’s begin by running through the lineups for both sides. Starting with the new World Champions, Argentina, Lionel Scaloni lined his side up in a 4-3-3 shape for the majority of this game, and Aston Villa’s Emiliano Martínez started in goal for La Albiceleste behind a back four of right-back Nahuel Molina, right centre-back Cristian Romero, left centre-back Nicolás Otamendi and left-back Nicolás Tagliafico.

Enzo Fernández played at the base of midfield alongside his now-regular partners in right central midfielder Rodrigo De Paul and left central midfielder Alexis Mac Allister — we recently published an analysis piece looking specifically at this midfield trio and their individual roles here at Total Football Analysis, if you’d like to read more about them, titled: FIFA World Cup 2022: The tactical dynamics of Argentina’s menacing midfield – scout report.