ARGENTINA take on France in a HUGE World Cup final on Sunday afternoon.
Croatia fell victim to a Lionel Messi masterclass in Tuesday’s dominant semi-final encounter as Argentina went through.
The Argentine legend opened the scoring with an expertly-taken penalty, and went on a mesmerising run before setting up Julian Alvarez for their third on the night.
But things will certainly be tougher for the little magician as he will be taking on a French side that managed to stop high-flying Morocco in their semi-final.
Messi has created a thrilling final chapter to his World Cup career and the magician will arguably go down as the greatest footballer EVER should he replicate what Diego Maradona did in 1986.
However, a win for Les Bleus would see them become the first nation in 60 years to achieve successive World Cup triumphs.
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Argentina suffered a nightmare start to their tournament with a shock 2-1 defeat to Saudi Arabia.
But they battled back to top Group C with 2-0 wins over Mexico and Poland, setting up a last-16 meeting with Australia.
After seeing off the Socceroos 201, they scraped past Holland on penalties in the quarters before breezing past Croatia.
France also won two and lost one of their group games – although their defeat to Tunisia came after beating Australia and Denmark.
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Les Bleus saw off Poland and then beat England in that dramatic quarter-final before eventually ending Morocco’s run on Wednesday night to secure their place in back-to-back finals.
Neither side have any suspensions to deal with after yellow cards were wiped after the quarters and may well be unchanged after semi-final wins.
Argentina can welcome back full-backs Marcos Acuna and Gonzalo Montiel from their one-match bans while Lisandro Martinez may return to the starting XI if Lionel Scaloni goes for a back five.
Dayot Upamecano and Adrien Rabiot sat out of the Morocco win with illness as France kept their first clean sheet – but will be hopeful of coming back in.
The rest of the team should stay the same – although Karim Benzema could be a shock inclusion on the bench as he is back in Real Madrid training.
Well, obviously Messi and Kylian Mbappe are the two main men for their respective nations – and all eyes will be on who comes out on top.
Elsewhere, Julian Alvarez will want to continue on from his two goals in the semi-final while Enzo Fernandez may be tasked with stopping Antoine Griezmann.
On the other side, Griezmann and Olivier Giroud will fancy their chances of scoring in the final.
Aurelien Tchouameni is in strong form in midfield while Raphael Varane will lead his back line.
The two heavyweights of international football have met 12 times in total – the first time coming in the first World Cup in 1930.
Argentina have six wins, France have three wins while there have been three draws.
But the French side came out on top in their most-recent clash – a thrilling 4-3 win in the last 16 of Russia 2018.
Argentina 3-2 France
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Argentina win 9/5
Draw 2/1
France victory 9/5
Odds courtesy of Betfair correct as of December 16.
