It’s easy to reduce the impending World Cup Final to a one-on-one between the two best players in the world, Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappe.
Certainly, they have been the best two players at this tournament – though Antoine Griezmann is making a late charge on the French side – and both teams will have to form a tactical plan around the pair.
But there’ll be plenty more to it than that. These are sides packed with talent and with distinct identities that, in the case of Didier Deschamps’ France, have persisted across multiple tournament cycles, and for Lionel Scaloni’s Argentina, have delivered continental success in South America and then translated to the world stage.
It’s intriguing stuff, so let’s get into it.
Well, obviously, this is where we have to start. Not so much with the players themselves, because everything that could possibly be written about them already has been in the last few days.
The conundrum for both managers is how to neutralise the biggest threat on the opposition and exploit the fact that, in order to accommodate two such supreme attackers, both Argentina and France don’t really ask either to defend at all.
England massively preoccupied themselves with stopping Mbappe and, while they were largely successful in doing so, they managed to leave Griezmann free and were made to pay.
Mbappe will lurk out on the left wing and France will concede space in order to draw Argentina forward, so that when they turn the ball over, they can strike and best utilise his speed.
Argentina could man mark him, but that would remove Nahuel Molina from offering a threat along the left, where he has been very good in an attacking sense, while also posing a risk of their defender getting burned for pace anyway. Kyle Walker, who did it for England, is about the fastest right back around and just about coped.
They could also change formation – more on which later – to stop the transition at source and avoid the nasty business of Mbappe getting the ball where he wants it. You can’t stop him getting it entirely, but you can make it hard for him to build up a head of steam.
On the other side, Messi will probably begin in the middle but drift to the right as he generally does. In 2018 when these two met, N’golo Kante was asked to man-mark Messi and did so superbly, but he is injured and misses thise tournament.
Were France to repeat the trick, it would likely be Aurelien Tchouameni asked to take that job, and telling him to follow someone around is a) a waste of his other talents and b) also not really likely to work.
There’s no clear answer to how this will be resolved, but it should be fascinating to watch.
Argentina’s Lionel Messi (left) and Australia’s Harry Souttar battle for the ball during the FIFA World Cup round of 16 match at the Ahmad Bin Ali Stadium in Al Rayyan, Qatar. Picture date: Saturday December 3, 2022. (Photo by Martin Rickett/PA Images via Getty Images)
To wit: will Argentina sacrifice a man in midfield – potentially to cover Mbappe – or will they flood the midfield and take France on?
Scaloni will have to choose between the four-man defence that he has sometimes operated and the five-man defence that he has favoured in recent games.
When they expected to dominate the ball, against the Netherlands, they went for five at the back to allow their wing-backs to go high and wide and their midfield three to sit narrow.
When they expected the other team to have it, against Croatia, they went four at the back to add another destroyer and push their more offensive midfielders, Alexis Mac Allister in particular, higher up the park to assist in transition.
The XI named by Scaloni will give a big indication as to how the game will pan out: France are more than happy to let the other side have the ball and thus the plan that worked against the Dutch, with three midfielders and wingbacks, is probably a good idea in terms of both creativity and covering Mbappe, as they would have the luxury of a right centre back and a wing back to double team him.
Barring injuries – or viruses, as one is going through the French camp, you can pretty much pick Deschamps’ team now, so the onus is on Scaloni to set out his stall.
Watch out for Marcos Acuna on the team sheet: he was suspended for the semi, but if he returns, then expect the 5-3-2 and a ball-dominant Argentina against a counter-attacking France. If Nicolas Tagliafico plays, then expect a game designed around both teams playing on the transition.
AL KHOR, QATAR – DECEMBER 10: Antoine Griezmann of France during the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 quarter final match between England and France at Al Bayt Stadium on December 10, 2022 in Al Khor, Qatar. (Photo by Visionhaus/Getty Images)
Mbappe v Messi is an obvious narrative, but they aren’t going to be in direct combat. After the pre-match handshake between the PSG teammates, it’s possible that they won’t be within 15m of each other.
Instead, there are a individual battles that need to be won. Griezmann, who might be the tactical key to this French side, has excelled in a deeper role than seen before and will need to be subdued. Stop him, and you stop a lot of France’s creativity.
That task will likely fall to Leandro Paredes, if Argentina go 4-4-2, in the defensive midfield role or one of Enzo Fernandez or Mac Allister if they play a three. The best argument for the four-man defence is the ability to stop Griezmann further from the goal via the extra midfield, and that will weigh heavily on Scaloni’s mind.
That question might concern Deschamps, too. There’s the potential for Messi to drift high on the right and overload Theo Hernandez, who struggled badly against England’s Bukayo Saka in the quarter final in either formation, but the potential for Angel di Maria to be included on the right of midfield would also present both a qualitative and a quantitative superiority in the right half-space where Hernandez and, if he returns from illness, Adrien Rabiot would certainly struggle.
On the other hand, the extra man at the back might give Argentina that superiority anyway, because they would simply have far more of the ball and thus negate whichever of Rabiot and Youssouf Fofana is chosen to partner Tchouameni in defensive midfield. Starve them of the ball, ensure Messi gets enough of it and push forward is not a bad plan.
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