2022 FIFA World Cup

Lore & Background

France arrived in Qatar as reigning champions, a status that carried both the weight of expectation and the freedom of having already proved themselves. Didier Deschamps, who had guided the team to the 2018 title and the 2016 European Championship, entered his third major tournament as manager with a squad blending veteran leadership with the raw, electric talent of a new generation. The group stage against Denmark, Tunisia, and Australia was navigated with composure, and the knockout rounds brought the kind of tests that separate contenders from champions.

The quarter-final against England in Al Rayyan was a tense, physical affair that France edged 2-1 after extra time, and the semi-final against the remarkable Moroccan side — the first African nation to reach a World Cup semi-final — was won 2-0 in a contest that underscored how deep the tournament's story had run. But it was the final at Lusail Stadium that would define the tournament in the public imagination. Argentina, led by a Lionel Messi playing what many would call his last World Cup, produced a performance of extraordinary beauty and grit. The match swung wildly: Mbappé's hat-trick, Messi's two goals, a late equaliser, and then a penalty shootout that tested every nerve in the stadium.

The broader significance of the 2022 title is that it completed a triad for France. After the home triumph of 1998 and the Russian coronation of 2018, the Qatar victory made France the third nation to win three World Cups and confirmed that the Deschamps era was not a fluke but a sustained, multi-year project in which the team's identity — defensive solidity, counter-attacking speed, and individual brilliance — had been refined to a fine edge. For French fans, it is the final that will be replayed in living rooms for generations: the roar of the penalty, the silence of the miss, the eruption when the last ball hit the net.

In Their Own Story

The floodlights at Lusail hummed with a frequency only the players could feel. Mbappé stood in the penalty box, the ball at his feet, the stadium a held breath of ninety thousand souls. He had already scored twice. He had already seen Messi's extra-time goal, the equaliser, the madness of it all. Now the ball sat on the spot again, and the whole world was a single white circle on green grass.

He ran. The strike was clean, low, into the corner Maignan had not been asked to save this time. The net rippled. Around him, the blue shirts were already screaming before the ball had even settled, a sound that rolled off the stadium roof and into the Qatari night. Somewhere in the tunnel, Deschamps stood with his hands on his hips, his face unreadable, and let the noise wash over him. In the stands, a father in a blue scarf pressed his phone to his ear and said nothing, because there was nothing to say that would be enough.

The trophy would be lifted later. The champagne would be warm. But the moment that belonged to France, the one that would live in every highlight reel and every bedtime story, was that single strike — the third of the night, the one that turned a 3-3 into a 4-2 and a World Cup into a third star on the shirt.

Reader's Guide

Trophy: 2022 FIFA World Cup

Year: 2022 Opponent beaten: Argentina Scoreline: 3–3 after 120 minutes; France won 4–2 on penalties

The single moment that sealed it: the penalty shootout. After 120 minutes of a match that had already produced a hat-trick for Mbappé and two goals for Messi, the contest was decided on the spot. France's goalkeeper Mike Maignan produced a crucial save, and the French players converted their penalties with composure while Argentina's attempts fell short. The final penalty of the shootout, struck home by a French player, ended the contest and sent the stadium into a roar that the broadcast picked up from three time zones away.

What makes this remarkable in the broader canon: France's third World Cup title places them in the same company as Brazil and Germany as the most successful nations in the competition's history. The final itself — a hat-trick, two Messi goals, extra time, and a shootout — is widely regarded as one of the greatest matches ever played in World Cup history, a performance that transcended the binary of winner and loser. For France, it was the culmination of a Deschamps era that also delivered the 2016 European Championship and the 2018 World Cup, making the manager the most decorated in the nation's history.

The 2022 title also carries a unique narrative weight: it was won on foreign soil, in a tournament that pushed the World Cup into the northern winter for the first time, and against a rival whose captain was playing what the world understood to be his farewell. That context — the last dance, the third star, the hat-trick in the final — gives the 2022 trophy a story that no stat line can fully capture.

Did You Know?

• Kylian Mbappé's hat-trick in the 2022 final made him one of the very few players in World Cup history to score in multiple finals, a feat that underscores his unique place in the tournament's lore.
• Didier Deschamps became the first manager to lead France to two World Cup titles (2018, 2022) and the 2016 European Championship, a treble of major honours no other France manager had achieved.
• The 2022 final featured a hat-trick and two goals from the opposing captain in a single match — a scoring output that made it one of the highest-scoring World Cup finals in history.
• France's 2022 victory made them the third nation ever to win three World Cups, joining Brazil and Germany in the most exclusive tier of the competition's history.