The 2022 Football World Cup!
The World Cup is the most prestigious association football tournament in the world, as well as the most widely viewed and followed single sporting event in the world. The viewership of the 2018 World Cup was estimated to be 3.57 billion (close to half of the global population), while the engagement with 2022 World Cup was estimated to be around 5 billion with close to 1.5 billion people watching the final match.
The first official World Cup was played in Uruguay 1930, and since then the tournament has been held every fourth year (with some exceptions for interruption due to the Second World War). Within all of those tournaments, Brazil holds the record for the most wins, with 5 titles, Germany and Italy are tied in second with 4 titles each, with Argentina close behind in third place with 3 titles to date.
Latest World Cup (Quatar 2022). Argentina's road to victory.
How did it begin? Scaloni's arrival to the Argentinian national team
I would account the beginning of Argentina's road to winning the World Cup, with the entry of Lionel Scaloni as the coach of the Argentinian team. Specifically, September 8th, 2018, when Lionel made his debut as interin coach on a friendly match against Guatemala. This was the beginning of a great future of Lionel Scaloni, and the Argentinian national team, which was later referred to as "La Escaloneta". On November 29th of that same year, Scaloni was confirmed as the official coach for the Argentinian national team. This would be the beginning of a great journey for Scaloni and for the Argentinian national team.
Copa America 2019
Despite being Lionel Scaloni's first time coaching a major team, he managed to get excellent result with Argentina's national team. Unfortunately, they lost in the semifinals agains Brazil 2-0. They still managed to get the third place in the competition after winning the match for the third place against Chile 2-1.
Copa America 2020/2021
As a small disclosure, the Copa America was intended to be played in 2020, but due to the new pandemic of COVID-19, it was postponed, and it could only properly begin in June 13th, 2021, with an excellent match featuring Argentina vs Chile's national team. This time, the Copa America was not going to slip Scaloni's grasp. Argentina played an admirable streak of winnings, which resulted on the Argentinian football team winning the Copa America 1-0 against Brazil on July 10th, 2021.
Argentina's rocky start in the World Cup
After having an amazing performance in the Copa America 2020/2021, which allowed the Argentinian national, or "La Escaloneta" as it more commonly known, and Escaloni to achieved an amazing streak of 36 matches without losing, they were unfortunately beaten by one of the least expected contenders for the World Cup title. Specifically, on November 22nd, 2022, Argentina faced Saudi Arabia on an unprecedented match, which saw the end of "La Escaloneta" streak and saw the Argentinian national team lose 2-0. This was definitely a rocky start, but nothing that could not be shaken off by their next results, as this was the last match that Argentina would lose on 2022 edition of the World Cup.
Argentina's recovery and rise to the top
After having a hard start on the World Cup, they raised against Poland and Mexico to come out first of the entire group. After coming out on top, Argentina would face their hardest enemies so far in the World Cup. The hardest of them, not counting the final of course, was the match against the Netherlands. The match was leaning very much in favor of "La Escaloneta", as it was minute 73 and Lionel Messi had just scored the second goal of the match, to leave the game 2-0 in favor of Argentina's national team; nonetheless, Weghorst would quickly change the confidence of Argentina after making 2 goals in minutes 83 and 101, which would tie the match again. Only in the penalty shootout would Argentina manage to win the match 4-3.
The grand finale
Even though the match against the Netherlands had already been hard enough, it was about to get worse, when facing the defending World Champion, France. Much like the match against the Netherlands, this game was leaning much in favor of "La Escaloneta". They had major control of the ball for most of the match, they had manage to make two goals in the first half of the game, and they didn't seem to be slowing down their pace to give any chance to France. This made all the more surprising, when it just 2 minutes (80 and 81), Kylian Mbappé managed to even the field scoring two goals in the Argentinian net. This forced the game into overtime.
In overtime, the game maintained its heartstopping speed and quality. France had regain strenght and confidence, it wasn't a game controlled by Argentina anymore, and they were both making strong attacks on the opposing teams. In this interesting and tight playing field, Lionel Messi managed to score a goal for Argentina in minute 108. With just 12 minutes left for the end of the match, the game felt as if it was already resolved, and we had a clear winner, but just in the nick of time, in minute 118 Kylian Mbappé managed to score yet another goal to put the game back at odds. This was the goal that forced the game to go into penalty shootout. In the penalty shootout, Argentina manage to win and conquer the World Cup 4-2, giving Messi what he had always wanted, a World Cup in his career. You can check the highlights of the final, on this link.
