The 2022 Qatar World Cup organization is nearing the end and the curiosity of who will play the final and who will win the trophy, which has been expected for 4 years, is rapidly progressing from being a question to being an answer.
The first finalist of the 2022 World Cup was Argentina. The Argentina - Croatia match played last night started with a far from surprising appearance and ended as predicted. Messi and his friends, who scored a clear score in the difficult semi-final match, intimidated their possible rivals in the final.
Although I don't know the exact number, Argentina has been one of the teams to win the most penalties in normal time. In the semifinal match, Messi's goal opened the curtain with a penalty and the rest came like a sock in the eye, so to speak.
Argentina played a comfortable game from start to finish and for the first time in all the tournaments I have watched, they are this close to the trophy! I don't include 1986 in this evaluation because I don't remember those years exactly.
It must have been a great pleasure to play the match beforehand, to be the winning side and to sit on the couch waiting for the opponent. Today, the Argentine footballers, the coaching staff and the entire Argentine public will experience this joy! They will sit back in their armchairs, sip their coffee and watch the match between France and Morocco, which will decide who will be their opponent.
Some people think it's an advantage to play before, some people think it's a disadvantage, but for me, as long as you are on the winning side, there is no positive or negative difference between playing before or after. Argentina played, won and is enjoying it.
Now let's leave the past (Argentina vs Croatia) and look to the future (France vs Morocco)!
An unforgettable tournament continues for Ziyech, Hakimi and friends. For the first time ever, a country from Africa has reached the semi-finals of the World Cup and maybe it will reach the final! We don't know that yet. The expectation is that last night's result will manifest itself tonight in favor of France, but the Moroccan defense will do its best to prevent that from happening.
I say Moroccan defense because they were more successful with their defense until the semifinals. Despite their unproductive game on offense, they succeeded because they didn't make mistakes on defense. Whatever the result, it is not hard to imagine that this success will be enough for Morocco, because even if they lose today, they will still play for third place.
4 years of being known as the third in the soccer world will be a real achievement that is hard for them to even dream of.
Many more scenarios are possible, but it is not difficult to know that in the world of those who have nothing to lose, anything can happen at any time!
Mbappe and his friends know they are the favorites. Not just against Morocco, but in every game they have played so far. In the quarterfinals their luck helped them, Kane, who failed to score a penalty late in the game, handed France the semifinal they wanted on a golden platter.
Will they need the same luck today, and if so, will it help them again? In a few hours we will have the answer to this question and we will know the finalists for the 2022 World Cup. The expectation is that the final will be Argentina vs France!
Argentina is OK, but France is not yet! Morocco will be the side with nothing to lose. Those with nothing to lose have always been a threat to be taken seriously. It could be an easy or a difficult game for France. It's more about how much they respect their opponent than their opponent, and it might mean something else for Morocco to be in the World Cup semi-finals against France, a country they lived under for years.
If Morocco, which has been successful with its solid defensive resilience, takes its resilience to the next level, we could witness the biggest surprise in football.
In such matches, it is often possible to see the drama and the joy of football in the same frame. Since Morocco will be successful even in the event of a loss, we may be deprived of that, but I expect a good match. I hope that at least one side will not surrender as easily as last night.
The Netherlands vs Argentina and England vs France were games of great rivalry. If the lack of resistance of the countries that made big surprises in the previous round in the next round happens again; we will leave behind an organization that is far from the excitement of the semi-final, but if such a situation occurs, the final can also be the scene of a competition far above expectations!
Championship match; Argentina - ?
Third place match; Croatia - ?
The countdown continues for the battle that will fill the question marks...