Hubby said he thought the referee made no mistakes, and noted how the ref called the PKs immediately without assist from VAR. Hubby kept repeating to me and family how the referee helped make that game as momentous as it was. Hubby and I generally agree almost 100% on a referee performance... I admit, i was too nervous and wracked to watch the entire game live, especially when I saw how tired ARG looked the first 10-20 mins of the 2H (and then they gave up the 2 quick goals). I only went to the TV when family was screaming a lot. I did watch the shootout live tho. (Daughter, son-in-law, and their 3 kids visiting, so I am spending a lot of the time in the kitchen)
I thought the FS1 post-game coverage was special, especially for Messi fans. It went on for about an hour. I thought it was especially fun to see Rob Stone, Landon, Clint, and Alexi do the wrap-up. Landon and Clint had such big smiles, you could tell they were happy for Messi. Alexi not so much. BTW, Brian Strauss is at SI and was a good friend of Grant Wahl's and maybe an even better writer, because he can be very eloquent. Brian Strauss wrote a superb article on Messi's win and how Coach Scaloni fashioned the roster. https://www.si.com/soccer/2022/12/18/world-cup-final-argentina-lionel-messi-france-mbappe
I'm a fan of Messi. Messi is the best player I've ever seen, perhaps the greatest ever. But he's a shadow of the player I saw in 2009. No shame in that. If you only saw Gretzky as an L.A. King, you really didn't see the Great One, even though he was still great. Messi didn't win this World Cup. The Argentine team did. The ball-washing of Messi is actually fairly disgusting because it is disrespectful to a team sport and the fullness of Messi's legacy within it. Messi isn't Argentina any more than Eva Peron is Argentina.
BBC sports readers rated Alexis Mac Allister as the man of the match, however, since he does play for Brighton in the Premier League, it probably skewed the voting toward him a bit. Brighton signed him for $7 million pounds in 2019, and now with interest from big clubs, like Tottenham, who want him as early as the January window, his price tag could be in the $50 million range. However, Brighton has him signed through 2025, with an option for another year.
And this twitter thread by Geir Jordet, the expert in PKs, is quite interesting. How Martinez marked the penalty box, in a sense. Argentina is world champion after a penalty shootout master class. At the core of their performance is goalkeeper Emi Martinez' mind games.Martinez dominated the French penalty takers, forcing two misses.Here’s a step-by-step description of his tricks in the final. Thread. 1/ pic.twitter.com/iujg2Sk1U0— Geir Jordet (@GeirJordet) December 19, 2022
It appears that Argentina decided to take PKs more seriously after Copa América Centenario. I would guess that France will do the same if they get the opportunity again.
Yep, Argentina lost two Copa finals on PKs to Chile in two years, the regular tournament in 2015 and the Centenario in 2016. That was the margin that kept Messi from lifting a major international trophy before 2021.
Of these 2 montages of the WC, I think BBC's 5-min video captures the spirit of the tournament nicely Fox Soccer made a 9-min montage of just the Final. I couldn't stand the music, but the highlights are well done...
I had never heard of this guy prior to the WC, but he was absolutely amazing throughout the tournament! Surprised they subbed him out, cause' he was going for it.
I wasn’t watching in real time. I caught the replay on FS1 and they cut away before the final PK. That was shit.
Messi skied one at the 2016 Final at Met Life Stadium, that we had the fortune to attend. Drove from the California Clasico at Stanford to park the car near Burlingame High School, SamTrans to SFO, flew to Newark, spent the day there, on to the game, back to the airport afterwards.
My only issue with the ref was when, during penalties, the Argentine Keeper grabbed the ball and threw it away. That should have been a yellow card.
Being a box to box midfielder he was probably gassed. I have watched him play for Brighton several times this year, and when I first heard his name I thought he might be some Scottish player that slipped under the radar. His family actually has roots in Ireland, but left there a couple of centuries ago. I guess the area they were from has many Mac Allisters of various spellings.
Martinez is crazy like a Fox. From the Twitter thread mjlee posted above apparently Martinez tested the ref to see what he could get away with. On the first PK he started off innocently after that he pushed the boundaries as he saw he could. The video of the "throw away" is hard to find as I don't think it was shown on the Fox broadcast. The only place I've seen it is here on Reddit. Worth watching. https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/com.../?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
Brighton bought him about 2 yrs ago from argentino jrs.and loaned him back to Boca jr's. because they thought he wasn't ready. Won a league championship with us and moved back to england last season. Quietly started getting minutes w Brighton and this season has come into his own and is a full-time starter for them. Comes from a long line of footballers. His father also played for the national team. He's got two older brothers Kevin & Francis that are also professional players in Argentina.
That's the thing with latin/Hispanic teams. Head games are a huge part of the game. I remember my old man telling me many many moons ago that Americans needed to learn how to do all those nasty little things that for example mexico does when they play the USMNT and every American hates. I tried explaining many time to him that those things are frowned upon in the states, but it's something that like it or not it's ingrained in South /central American futbol/soccer. I personally don't like it, but it's never going to change unfortunately.
There's some things I like and some things I don't like. I think GK antics during a shoot out is fair game if they get away with it. Flopping sucks though.
Yeah, I too have a limit for GK antics, but rolling the ball away instead of handing it to the opponent is ubiquitous in soccer. That's what happens like 99% of the time. I'm more shocked when I see a player actually give the ball to the opponent. Now if Martinez had punted the ball into the stands that would be a deserved yellow card.
Hence my handle... Bostero. It's what they call us. Means poop. In the neighborhood of la Boca being a very old and underdeveloped neighborhood they've been times where during floods "everything " flowed through the streets. Same with riBer plate, they call them gallinas/chickens. Because they've always "chickens out" during big games. Obviously that changes for them in the lady few yrs with Gallardo winning pretty much everything you could win in S. American soccer.
Here is more angles of the Martinez "throw away". In this video it shows that Martinez actually rolled the ball towards Tchouaméni but off to the side.