The Qatar World Cup has just come to an end with probably the greatest football match in history, a thrilling final between Argentina and France in which Argentina were victorious on penalties meaning Lionel Messi finally picked up the trophy that had evaded him his whole career and cemented himself as the greatest to ever play football.  

However, this World Cup was subject to a lot of controversy in the build-up, during, and even after as many discuss the morals of the country of Qatar and whether it was a good idea to allow them to play host to the biggest competition in sports history. This article will focus on the football bit of the world cup which had it all, from winners Argentina starting the World Cup getting beat to Saudi Arabia in their fifth appearance in the world cup, to the fairy tale stories of Morocco and Japan, to two of the ‘big boys’ in Germany and Belgium going out in the group stage. 

The World Cup started slowly with the hosts Qatar being swept aside by Ecuador who looked half-decent, mainly because of how bad Qatar looked. England then turned up and showed themselves as strong contenders for the cup, absolutely battering Iran 6-2. Then, as previously mentioned, Argentina got off to the worst possible start in a 2-1 defeat to world cup novices Saudi Arabia. Argentina were all over Saudi Arabia in this game but Saudi Arabia were clinical as they scored both of their shots on target, with the thousands of Saudi Arabians in the stadium erupting in joy. There were a few upsets along the way with Japan beating Germany, Morocco beating Belgium and Japan beating Spain. In the knockouts, the Aussies gave eventual winners Argentina a good game, who went through a thriller with the Netherlands and a routine victory over Croatia to get to the final. The other finalists, France, ended the Morocco fairy tale in the semi-finals, and ensured that the 56 years of hurt for England fans would continue for at least another 4.  

The final was enthralling, as Kylian Mbappe showed himself to be not just one of the best youngsters in the world, but one of the best players in the world, scoring a hat-trick in a world cup final which had only been done once before. There was also the story of full-back Gonzalo Montiel who gave away the penalty for France to make the game 3-3 in the 118th minute, then slotted home the winning penalty in the shootout, putting an end to what was arguably the greatest football match in the sports history.