2022 World Cup Final – France 3–3 Argentina (4–2 pen)
A hat-trick, a double, a miss — the final that broke two nations in ninety minutes of glory.
The 2022 FIFA World Cup Final, played on 18 December 2022 at Lusail Stadium in Qatar, is widely regarded as one of the greatest football matches ever contested. France, champions of 2018 under Didier Deschamps, met Argentina under Lionel Scaloni in a contest that delivered a hat-trick, a double, extra time, and a penalty shootout — a sequence of drama that left two nations in celebration and two in heartbreak within the span of a single night.
For France, the match is the defining moment of the Deschamps era: a second World Cup final, a golden-boot-winning performance from Kylian Mbappé, and the agony of a penalty miss that cost the title. For the broader football world, it is the match where two generational icons — Mbappé and Messi — delivered their most extraordinary individual displays in the sport's biggest stage, and where the narrative of a career-defining final was written in real time.
- Venue
- Lusail Stadium, Lusail, Qatar
- Date
- 18 December 2022
- Final Score
- France 3–3 Argentina (Argentina won 4–2 on penalties)
- France Hat-trick
- Kylian Mbappé (12', 79', 118')
- Argentina Goals
- Di María (36'), Messi (80', 81')
- France Coach
- Didier Deschamps
- Argentina Coach
- Lionel Scaloni
Lore & Background
This match occupies a singular place in French football memory. France had won the World Cup in 1998 and 2018, and the 2022 final was the third time the team reached the last game of the tournament. Mbappé's hat-trick made him the first player since Geoff Hurst in 1966 to score three goals in a World Cup final, a feat that cemented his status as one of the game's all-time greats regardless of the result. He also finished the tournament as the top scorer, winning the Golden Boot, a record individual achievement in a losing cause.
The penalty shootout carried a particular weight for France. Griezmann's miss, saved by Emiliano Martínez, became an instant iconic image — the Argentine keeper on his knees, arms outstretched, the ball tumbling away. For a nation that had been denied in the 2006 final and the 2022 final, the pattern of heartbreak in the last game of a World Cup took on a mythic quality. Deschamps, who had won the 2018 final as a player in 1998's losing side, stood in the tunnel as the confetti fell for Argentina, a figure of quiet dignity.
In the wider canon of the France national team, the 2022 final is the counterweight to 2018. Where 2018 was a coronation — a young Mbappé, a team in full flow, a 4-2 victory — 2022 was a tragedy of the highest order. The two finals bookend the Mbappé era, and together they define what it means to be a French international: to reach the summit, to deliver the individual brilliance, and to stand at the edge of the trophy with the weight of the nation on your shoulders.
In Their Own Story
The stadium is a bowl of light in the Qatari night. You can smell the grass, freshly cut, and the faint sweetness of the thousands of flags being waved. The France players line up in their deep blue, the tricolor on their chests catching the floodlights. Mbappé is quiet, jaw set, hands in his pockets. He has already scored four in this tournament, more than any man here, and the weight of expectation sits on him like a second kit.
Argentina come out in their sky-blue and white, and Messi walks to the centre circle with that familiar, unhurried gait. He looks like a man who has been here before, in 1990, in 2014, in 2021. He has not. Not yet. Not tonight.
The whistle blows. And for one hundred and twenty minutes, the best football you will ever see in a single match is played by two men who will never play a World Cup final again. The rest is noise, and silence, and a ball that goes over a bar, and a keeper's hands, and a sky full of confetti that belongs to someone else.
Reader's Guide
Lusail, 18 December 2022. The desert night is still, but 88,000 throats are not. France in deep blue, Argentina in sky and white, and the weight of two nations' football history pressing down on a single kick-off.
Twelfth minute: Mbappé steps up, cool, and the France fans in Paris erupt on their screens. Di María, that ghost of 2021, cuts inside at 36 and curls it home. 1-1. The first half ends in a held breath.
Seventy-ninth minute. Mbappé, penalty again, France 2-1. And in sixty seconds, Messi scores twice. 80. 81. Argentina 3-2. The stadium becomes a white-and-blue ocean.
118th minute. A corner. Mbappé rises, headers home. Hat-trick. 3-3. The noise is physical, a wall of sound you feel in your chest.
Then silence. Griezmann's penalty, saved by Emiliano Martínez, the ball bouncing off the keeper's outstretched hands. The stadium holds its breath. Goal after goal. 4-2. Messi on his knees. Mbappé, still in his blue, staring up at the sky.
This was the final. Not 2018, not 2022. The one that will define both men for the rest of their lives.
Did You Know?
- Kylian Mbappé became the first player since Geoff Hurst in 1966 to score a hat-trick in a FIFA World Cup Final.
- The 2022 Final was the first World Cup Final to be decided by a penalty shootout since the 2010 Final between Spain and the Netherlands.
- Mbappé finished the 2022 tournament as the top scorer (Golden Boot), a rare individual honour in a losing cause.
- Lionel Messi won the Golden Ball (Player of the Tournament) despite his team losing the final, a first in World Cup history for the tournament's best player.