Have we really witnessed the best World Cup Final of all time?

Mundane, turgid matches engulfed in a shadow of pandemonium and drama, ultimately overcome by the seductive tale of footballing immortality in this immoral country. A tournament that put defensive, compact football back in fashion with crosses into the box, produced what is being dubbed in some corners ‘the greatest World Cup Final of all time.’

Everyone has their own World Cup memories. The first World Cup is always the most cherished one. Everyone remembers watching their first World Cup.

For me, my first World Cup memory is Torsten Frings launching a screamer from 35 yards in the opening game at the Allianz Arena in Munich during the 2006 edition.

On a two-week holiday in the South of France in a holiday home resort run by an English family I remember walking into the tightly packed and intensely patriotic bar just as the studs on Wayne Rooney’s Nike T90s became entangled with Ricardo Carvalho’s crown jewels.

The gasp that rang around the room that day, another sense of injustice against the English a flashback to David Beckham in 1998. How dare the referee send Rooney off, England’s new golden boy.

The Cristiano Ronaldo wink... My first exposure to the dark arts of football that still infuriate yet thrill me 16 years later.

Maybe instead of blaming everyone but yourselves – one should ask why Jamie Carragher was taking a penalty in a World Cup quarter-final shootout for the golden generation – although he did score before it was ordered to be retaken.

Holland vs Portugal in the last-16 also comes to mind and there were shades of that in the Argentina, Holland quarter-final in Qatar.

Hatchet men all around.

My first encounter with the famous Brazilians and their samba football. Icons like Ronaldo, Adriano, Kaka, Ronaldinho, Cafu, Lucio among others and the unforgettable Nike jerseys with the ring around the numbers.

Australia thrilled me then and since I have had a love for the Socceroos and that affection was rekindled in the middle east as the boys from down under gave Messi and co an almighty scare just as they did Italy.

Australia have progressed to the knockout stages twice in the World Cup and bowed out to the eventual winners on both occasions.

At seven years of age, I am old enough to remember the 2006 final, but I didn’t have the football IQ to judge its quality.

Zizou’s panenka is probably the only penalty I've seen go in without touching the net as it caressed the bar and fainted across the line.

At this point I am still in France and a similar gasp of disbelief rang around the bar when arguably the greatest midfielder of all time launched his forehead into the chest of Marco Materazzi leaving the locals aghast that their king could commit such a crime.

That was my first World Cup. Nostalgia has the grip of a sticky floor, it grips us and tries desperately not to let us go. It’s the greatest World Cup I've ever seen but the 2022 World Cup final in Qatar is the greatest World Cup final I've ever seen, but does that make it the greatest of all time?

FIFA President Gianni Infantino did his best to disgrace himself day by day in Qatar and as expected he embraced the sports washing element by labelling the tournament as the “best ever.”

It wasn’t. Sorry Gio.

I found the showpiece to be quite befitting of the entire tournament. Throughout the competition there were a series of turgid, lacklustre and mundane matches that just exploded and suddenly became embroiled in chaos for the final ten or fifteen minutes.

The upsets were great to a point and teed up a seriously exciting group stage conclusion, yet I still don’t feel like the football was great. On an X and Y axis the line is on a diagonal from a 5 in terms of quality to a 10 in excitement.

It was a World Cup where you need not watch the first half.

The final took on the exact same pattern.

These social media, YouTube football ‘pundits’ have a phrase that I detest. “Recency bias.” Where their knowledge only expands as far as what will get them clicks and views. It is easy to give this final all the accolades, but was it really the greatest game?

If you had told anybody after 79 minutes that you were going to see arguably the greatest World Cup final of all time you would have been medically tested.

But as the King looked to be coasting to immortality in this immoral tournament, the man next in line for the throne stepped up to send what was a fairly tepid spectacle – other than a superbly executed Di Maria goal – spiralling into madness.

It was typical of Argentina to concede twice in quick succession as they did vs the Netherlands or Wout Weghorst, their inability to manage games in the closing stages is a recipe for disaster but for the neutral it’s mouth-watering.

Unlike the Argentinian and Dutch quarter-final where both sides settled for penalties, the unpredictability and thrill continued into extra time and this is where this final stands out for me.

Both sides were punch drunk as the game ticked on, the Argentinians becoming more of a blubbering mess as time passed. And yet both will feel they should have won it in the 124^th minute.

Emiliano Martinez is one of those goalkeepers, he’ll never be world class.

An above average goalkeeper at a football club stumbling on a lateral curve of nothingness produced arguably the greatest save I’ve ever seen in a final – Jerzy Dudek’s inexplicable save to deny Andriy Shevchenko a 4-3 lead ‘that night’ will forever be part of the discussion.

Somehow Argentina composed themselves from the brink of humiliation and broke, setting up the stricken Lautaro Martinez who produced a moment much more akin to Gonzalo Higuain in 2014 than Troy Deeney in 2013.

Some unbelievable moments, the Mbappe equaliser had most of the footballing world off their seats as you wondered was the prince going to steal the King’s crown?

As much as it was genius from France’s number 10, the cushioned header to turn a nothing ball into a good one, the darting run and first-time volley, I can’t help but think a world class goalkeeper saves it.  

Martinez should have saved it, but he did more than make up for it in extra time and penalties. Although his behaviour in the shootout and on the podium was a disgrace.

But this was not the greatest World Cup of all time and this was not the greatest final of all time.

You’ll never beat Istanbul in 2005.

How can a final where Antoine Griezmann has only 11 passes and Mbappe 11 touches in the first half be the greatest of all time? A final where around the hour mark Argentina have 14 shots on goal to France’s zero?

For 80 minutes there was one team in it. Of course, the sheer non-event of the football itself would have been lost in the seductive tale that Messi finally got his hands on the World Cup and this sport that can be so crude and murky and frankly disgusting for most of the time produced yet another fairytale story.

The French were absolutely battered, unable to string a pass together, and balls kicked into touch.

This amazing front four that seemingly had the perfect balance throughout the tournament was torn apart by Didier Deschamps after just 40 minutes as record goalscorer Olivier Giroud and the abhorrently ineffective Ousmane Dembele were withdrawn.

The final was a role reversal for both teams. It was expected that France would dominate the ball with Griezmann linking everything together while Argentina - an average team at best and one that would struggle to get to the quarter-finals without Messi – would rely on moments.

But this time it was the French who were completely off colour and reliant on their own number ten to drag them out of the mire and how!

Scenarios were written up that Messi could get a hat trick in the final and still lose such is France’s quality, but it was Mbappe who dug so deep in a team that was thwarted by its own inability to function on the day.

The beauty of knockout football is that the best team doesn’t always win or even get to the final, anyone can beat anyone over 90 minutes whereas the cream generally rises to the top in a league format bar any freak injury crisis.

On Sunday the best team in the final won, but the best team in the tournament lost.

The overriding image is either Messi having a brief moment alone with the World Cup as his lips touched the object he feared would always elude him, or the embarrassment that was the trophy ceremony as Gianni Infantino went from feeling ‘gay’ or ‘migrant worker’ to feeling ‘man marker’ as he dared not let Messi out of his sight.

Messi wearing the Bisht will have infuriated many but it hammered home the fact that regardless of the outcome of the final, Qatar won.

The two crown jewels of Paris Saint Germain going head-to-head at the end of a month-long display of sports washing.

Congratulations Qatar, you won, enjoy the money, I hope it makes you happy.

Abbie Larkin among five players to leave Tolka for Tallaght as the Hoops confirm seven squad signings https://t.co/8gui02NRTvpic.twitter.com/LzMKpAFOOt

— Extratime.com (@ExtratimeNews) December 22, 2022