Argentina vs France LIVE: World Cup final 2022 result, score and reaction as Lionel Messi beats Kylian Mbappe to win tournament on penalties

Kylian Mbappe scored a hat-trick as the 2018 champions twice came from behind after Lionel Messi’s brace had twice put Argentina ahead.

But Kingsley Coman and Aurelien Tchouameni missed from 12 yards before Gonzalo Montiel netted the decisive spot-kick to spark wild scenes of celebration.

Messi had opened the scoring in the first-half before Angel Di Maria added a second before Mbappe produced some magic of his own to drag his own side back in it.

His first came from the spot before volleying in a second less than two minutes later to send the game into extra-time.

Messi struck again from close range with what he thought was the winner before Mbappe completed his treble – again from 12 yards – to force a shootout.

Emiliano Martinez saved from Coman before Tchouameni screwed his effort wide leaving Montiel to win it with the fourth and final kick.

Here is the story of an extraordinary game:

The World Cup is coming to an end, with 32 teams having been whittled down to two, and plenty of players having secured their places in history as heroes and heartbreakers.

Morocco went on a fairytale run to the semi-finals, beating Belgium, Spain and Portugal before ultimately falling to defending champions France, who have become the first team to reach back-to-back finals since Brazil – runners-up in 1998 and title winners in 2022.

Elsewhere, Croatia came close to matching France’s achievement, four years after falling to Les Bleus in the final, but Luka Modric and his teammates were seen off in the semi-finals by an inspired Argentina, driven to a second final in eight years by Lionel Messi.

But which players impressed the most in Qatar, and did any do enough to earn a spot in the ‘best XI’ despite perhaps falling sooner than expected or hoped?

Here is the Independent’s World Cup team of the tournament.

Out of the many facts and figures circulated about Qatar’s problems, there is one realisation that should stand above everything. It is a disgrace that, in 2022, a country can host a World Cup where it has lured millions of people from the poorest countries on earth – often under false pretences – and then forced them into what many call “modern slavery”.

And yet this has just been accepted. The World Cup carries on, an end product of a structure that is at once Orwellian and Kafkaesque. A huge underclass of people work in an autocratic surveillance state, amid an interconnected network of issues that make it almost impossible to escape. “It’s all so embedded,” says Michael Page of Human Rights Watch.

Many will point to similar problems in the west but this isn’t the failure of a system. It is the system, global inequality taken to an extreme. “The bottom line is that these human rights abuses are not normal for a World Cup host,” says Minky Worden, also of Human Rights Watch.

Qatar 2022 has so many concerns it has a strong claim to be the most problematic football competition ever, maybe surpassing Argentina 1978. It is so bad that, when human rights groups went to federations with various individual points, they were told to come up with common causes.

Officials in the Ukrainian government urged Fifa to show the clip, which showed Mr Zelensky calling to “unite all nations of the world”.

Posting the message on Twitter as Argentina and France prepared to clash in Qatar, Kyiv’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs wrote that “there is still time for Fifa to show the video before the game that unites people and symbolises fairplay”.

The message added: “Don’t be afraid that the world will hear the words of peace.”

Argentina paid tribute to the late Diego Maradona during their World Cup celebrations on Sunday, as the national team won the trophy for the first time since the icon inspired them to the world title in 1986.

Lionel Messi scored twice on Sunday – while Paris Saint-Germain teammate Kylian Mbappe netted a hat-trick to claim the golden boot – to finally lift the one trophy to have long eluded him.

After the Argentina captain did just that, the trophy was passed between his teammates. Defender German Pezzella could be seen carrying an Argentina jersey with No 10 on the back – a shirt from Maradona’s spell with the national team, when the former midfielder sported the number.

Maradona also coached Argentina from 2008 until 2010, overseeing their campaign at the South Africa World Cup.

Kylian Mbappe’s hat-trick goal, the sixth of this final, was the 172nd goal at the 2022 World Cup, a new all-time competition record, surpassing the 171 scored in both 1998 and 2014.

France forward Kylian Mbappe became the fifth player to score in two separate World Cup finals, after Vavá (1958, 1962), Pelé (1958, 1970), Paul Breitner (1974, 1982), and Zinedine Zidane (1998, 2006). He has four goals in finals of the World Cup overall, the outright most of any player.

Mbappe scored his 10th (and 11th and 12th) World Cup goal, becoming the 15th different player to reach double figures at the finals. Aged 23 years and 363 days, he was the youngest of those 15 to hit that tally, surpassing Gerd Muller (24y 226d).

Argentina’s Lionel Messi made his 26th appearance in a World Cup match, becoming the all-time record holder for most games played at the tournament, overtaking Lothar Matthaus (25).

Messi has been directly involved in 21 goals at the World Cup for Argentina (13 goals, 8 assists), the outright most of any player for any nation at the finals on record (since 1966).

Messi became the first player in World Cup history to score in the group stage, round of 16, quarter-final, semi-final and final in a single edition of the tournament.

One last bit of sportswashing from Qatar.

Argentina have won more penalty shootouts than any nation in World Cup history, with this their sixth such triumph.

They are the third nation to win a World Cup final shootout, after Brazil in 1994 and Italy in 2006.