Qatar 2022
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The Final
The 2022 FIFA World Cup is an association football tournament, contested by the men’s national teams of FIFA’s member associations and the 22nd FIFA World Cup. It is taking place in Qatar from 20 November to 18 December 2022.
Argentina vs France, 3pm GMT
Winner Argentina @8/5
Bet Builder:
Argentina Win both teams to score and Messi to Score or assist @6/1
Both, Argentina and France, proved to have a high-quality offense throughout the tournament. Both teams scored 13 goals in Qatar. Making it an average of 2.2 scored goals per game. We would give a slight offensive advantage to France, though, due to their offensive personnel.
Notably, Argentina’s defense is the best in the tournament. They allowed on average tournament-low 5.5 goal attempts and only 1.6 shots on goal per game. Their offense is shining bright, too. They produced one of the best shooting numbers in Qatar. On average 6.5 shots on goal and 13.8 goal attempts per game. Out preforming France in any of these categories. In particular France’s defense has its problems. They only kept a single clean sheet for the entire tournament. Admittedly that was a pretty lucky one as Morocco had a couple of big scoring chances at the end.
In this World Cup, France’s general approach to games has been to be passive after getting the lead. Hoping for opportunities of deadly counterattacks by using Mbappe’s and Dembele’s pace. It worked quite well against weaker opponents. However, they have faced a high-quality opponent just once in the tournament, yet. Against England, it was pure luck that this strategy paid off. France sweated their way into the semi-finals. England’s strong offense had chances to score not only the tying goal, but to get even 1-2 more goals. Maguires header, Bellingham’s laser, Rashford’s free kick and much more. But first and foremost Kane’s 2nd penalty kick. The ball disappeared into the Qatari night and is yet to be found. If Kane would have converted this penalty or any other big chance for England would have went in.
Argentina also used this kind of passive approach after having the lead. Weghorst nearly kicked and tricked them out of the tournament due to this passive strategy. Argentina got everything under control until they got too passive after having a 2-goal lead by minute 73′ against the Netherlands. Argentina is warned. They already made the experience that this strategy is a pretty risky one and they adjusted accordingly, which they ‘ve demonstrated in their 3-0 Win over Croatia.
France’s fitness status is at question. A virus had inflected their camp. Rabiot and Upamecano caught it just a couple of days ago prior to the semi-final against Morocco. Most recently, Varane, Konate and Coman were also dealing with flu-like symptoms. Such things like respiratory ailments can spread rapidly and infect other team-mates quickly and leading to symptoms a bit later due to incubation period. Even the most precautionary measures can’t prevent it from spreading sometimes. Although they’re well trained athletes, a flu doesn’t go fully away after a couple of days. Additionally, Tchouameni, Giroud and Hernandez are banged up with a sore hip and knee, respectively. These are a lot of regulars, which aren’t supposed to be fully healthy. However, the entire squad has taken part at the trainings session 1 day prior to finals. But this seemed a bit like a defiant reaction to the media coverage about the health status of the French players. It’s a bit suspicious that French national team manager Deschamps didn’t utter all-clear signals at the press conference about his team’s fitness status. But that’s a lot of speculation and interpretation. We won’t put a massive weight on the questionable French injury and health situation. However, it’s still something to consider.
France imposed strict Covid like rules around the squad due to 5 players falling sick with flu like symptoms.
Argentina predicted starting 11:
E. Martinez; Molina, Romero, Otamendi, Acuna; De Paul, Fernandez, Mac Allister; Di Maria, Messi, Alvarez
France predicted starting 11:
Lloris; Kounde, Varane, Upamecano, T. Hernandez; Tchouameni, Rabiot; Dembele, Griezmann, Mbappe; Giroud
Head to Head:
Sunday’s final will mark the 13th meeting between Argentina and France in all competitions, with the South American champions picking up six wins so far compared to just three for their European counterparts, while another three have ended all square.
However, the most recent showdown between the two sides ended in a thrilling 4-3 Bleus win during the 2018 World Cup last 16, with that Benjamin Pavard thunderbolt still lingering in the memory of the France fanbase.
La Albiceleste came up trumps in the first two World Cup clashes between the two teams in 1930 and 1978, and there have only been three occasions where Argentina and France have both scored in this clash of the titans.
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