All good things must come to an end. For a tournament that occurs once every four years, it’s understandable why there’s so much emotion, as the last game of the tournament will be played on the 18th of December at the Lusail stadium. Two teams have had to overcome a series of challenges to get to this point. Argentina and France are the teams that made it to the 2022 FIFA Qatar World Cup finals. We are sure of an exciting game owing to the character of the teams involved. Argentina overcame an early scare in the tournament to become one of the best attacking teams in this year’s tournament, while France has lived up to expectations at every point of the tournament. 

Road To The 2022 World Cup Finals

Here we will look at both teams’ journey to the finals, from their first group game to the semi-finals. 

Argentina 

If you look at how Argentina kicked off the tournament, it’s incredible how they bounced back from an early scare in their opening game and remained consistent to make it to the finals. Suffering defeat at the hands of the second-lowest ranked team in your opening game in the World Cup is quite demoralizing, but the Argentines took motivation from that and surprised the whole world with their reaction. Here is how Argentina progressed to the Finals.

• Argentina’s opening game, as mentioned earlier, was against the second-lowest-ranked team in the tournament, Saudi Arabia. They suffered a 2-1 loss, to everyone’s surprise. Lionel Messi opened the scoring via a penalty, but the Arabians responded with two goals in the second half to win the game. 
• Next up, Argentina was up against Mexico and won by two goals to nil for their first points in the group.
• Another 2-0 win against Poland secured Argentina’s spot as the group leader to progress to the round of 16.
• Argentina was up next against Australia in the round of 16. They defeated Australia 2-1 to progress to the quarter-finals
• Argentina now faced the Netherlands in the quarter-finals. Messi gave Nahuel Molina the assist for his first-ever international goal as Argentina took the lead. Messi converted a penalty kick in the 73rd minute to make it 2-0 for Argentina. To keep the Netherlands within striking distance of Argentina, 2-1, substitute Wout Weghorst breached the Argentine defense and pierced the goal. He scored again late in extra time to force extra time and ultimately force penalties, which Argentina eventually won 4-2.
• Argentina played former World Cup finalist Croatia in the semi-finals. Lionel Messi led Argentina to a 3-0 win over Croatia. He scored and provided two assists as he was involved in all three goals for the Argentines. It’s noteworthy that Julian Alvarez scored two goals, including a beautiful solo goal in the game. 

France 

France faced a lot of adversities heading into this tournament. A number of injuries hit them before the tournament began. Besides their dynamic midfield duos of Paul Pogba and N’golo Kante, who were not registered due to injuries, Christopher Nkuku and Karim Benzema suffered injuries in training a few days before the tournament. However, The French’s depth was enough to compensate for the lack of such key figures in the squad as they cruised to the finals. 

• France opened the tournament with a win over an emphatic 4-1 win over Australia. 
• They went on to win their second group game 2-1 against Denmark. This was enough to secure qualification to the round of 16. 
• In a game that did not affect their qualification hopes, France lost their third group game by a goal to nil to Tunisia. 
• France was up against Poland in the round of 16, and they cruised past them, winning three goals to one.
• France played England in the quarter-finals, and a second-half Harry Kane penalty miss ensured their progression to the semi-finals. France opened the scoring, but England got a penalty to bring the game to level terms. Giroud, in the second half, put the French team up front, proving decisive. 
• France was up against the dark horse of the tournament Morocco in the semi-finals. In the first half, the reigning champions took the early lead in the game via AC Milan’s defender’s strike, Theo Hernadez. The French did well to fend off Morocco’s attack to bring the game to level terms, and Hugo Lloris was key to that as he made quite a number of impressive saves. A Kolo Muani second-half goal was enough to secure the win for France, who will now make a back-to-back finals appearance. 

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Match Prediction

Argentina has the heart and drives to win it all; you can see it clearly in Lionel Messi. His body language shows how much this means to him, and we may be seeing a side of him he had never shown since the beginning of his career. What the French team has is experience. They have been here before and have several players from the last group that won the trophy in 2018.

The French team has a solid defense, and the attack is probably in contention with the Argentines for the best in the tournament. While Messi might seem destined for ultimate success, this French team will be tough to beat.

Also, Argentina greatly depends on Messi, which is a weakness. France might survive the Argentine storm on their way to a third World Cup victory thanks to their apparent incapacity to panic and evident firepower. The pick here is for France to win but by a thin Margin. 

For player props, Mbappe should get on the scoresheet, while Lionel Messi also tends to thrive on the biggest of stages. Messi to score or assist is the second pick for player props. 

The tournament is not the easiest to predict. Argentina winning will be the perfect tale to Lionel Messi’s career as the World Cup is all he needs to etch his name in the history books as the greatest player ever to grace a football pitch. Meanwhile, for France, it’s the birth of a new footballing legend at a very young age.

Kylian Mbappe is the man in question, and at the young age of 23, two World Cup trophies would be insane. However, this prediction favors the more experienced team, which does not depend on a one-person wonder to win games. 

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The Prestigious tournament is now closing, with one match left before we crown another World Cup winner who will hold the title for another four years. This time, France is making a back-to-back finals appearance as defending champions, while Argentina is hoping to lay their hands on the much-coveted trophy for the third time in their history.

This matchup is undoubtedly one for the books, as there’s so much at stake. A win for the French team will etch their name in history as the third team to win a back-to-back era. In contrast, for the Argentine team, this will mark the crowning of Messi as the best to ever grace the game of football, as a World Cup title is the missing piece to lay claims at the G.O.A.T status. Here we will look at how fans can watch the final in Qatar and worldwide. 

Match Kick Off

The highlight, Lusail Stadium, will host Argentina vs. France FIFA World Cup final in Qatar 2022, bringing an incredible tournament to a close. Here will look at kick-off times for different countries. 

• It starts at 3 pm GMT in the United Kingdom and 10 am ET in the United States. 
• For the host country Qatar, game time is 18:00 local time. 
• Australia 02:00 AEDT, India 20:30 IST, Hong Kong 23:00 HKT, Malaysia 23:00 MYT, 
• Singapore 23:00 SGT, New Zealand 04:00 NZDT, and Pacific Time(PT) 7:00.

Expected Line-Up

These players are expected to start for Argentina and France in the 2022 Qatar FIFA World Cup Final.

Argentina 

Goalkeeper: Martinez

Defenders: Molina, Romero, Otamendi, Acuna

Midfielders: De Paul, Paredes, Fernandez, Mac Allister 

Forwards: Messi and Alvarez 

France 

Goalkeeper: Lloris

Defenders: Kounde, Varane, Konate, T. Hernandez

Midfielders: Rabiot, Tchouameni

Forwards: Dembele, Griezmann, Mbappe, and Giroud 

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Where To Watch The World Cup For Viewers At Home?

• In the USA: You can watch on the following TV Channels; Fox, Telemundo, and Universo, and you can live stream via fuboTV, Fox Sports site/app, Telemundo Deportes site/app, Peacock, and Universo Now.
• For viewers in Canada: You can tune in to the following TV Channels; TSN 1, CTV, and RDS (French), while you can live stream via the TSN site/app, CTV website, and RDS app.
• UK: You can watch on the listed TV Channels; BBC One, ITV 1, and STV, while you can live stream via BBC iPlayer, BBC Sport website, ITVX, STV Player
• Australia: Tune in to Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) or Livestream on SBS on demand
• India: You can tune into the following TV channels; Sports 18 and MTV HD (Hindi), while you can stream on JioTV.
• Hong Kong: You can watch it on TV channels like Now TV (Ch. 616, 618) and ViuTV and live-stream Now TV.
• Viewers in Malaysia can watch on RTM TV2 and Astro FIFA World Cup 1 while streaming on Astro GO and RTMKlik.
• In Singapore, you can watch on Channel 5, StarHub TV FIFA World Cup, and Singtel FIFA World Cup 141, while you can stream on Singtel TV GO, CAST, StarHub TV+, and MeWatch.
• For New Zealand, you can watch on Sky Sports 7 and beIN Sports and can stream via Sky Go and Sky Sports NOW.

With this, we have covered a majority of continents and listed where and when to watch the final World Cup action scheduled to take place on the 18th of December, 2022. Whether you watch it live at the Lusail stadium or from the comfort of your home, this match will go down in the history books. 

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For new bettors, it’s important to note conditions that might influence bet results besides players’ performance, team formations, weather conditions. We will look at how the new refereeing rules impact match outcomes in the 2022 FIFA Qatar World Cup. Bettors need to understand how this influences their bet outcomes and how to factor it into placing bets on games. Here are the rules that should be taken into consideration. 

Additional Time

With 14 minutes at the end of the first half and 10 minutes at the end of the second, England’s crushing 6-2 victory over Iran in Group B was extended by nearly 30 minutes. In the quarterfinal match between the Netherlands and Argentina, there were five extra minutes in the first half and ten in the second as the Dutch sought to score in the last seconds to force extra time.

Why has the 2022 World Cup in Qatar already seen so much overtime? 

According to a former referee, fans shouldn’t be shocked if they see the fourth official raise the electronic board with a large number on it, such as six, seven, or eight minutes. The leading causes of this significant rise in added time have been injuries, holiday time, and some deliberate delays by players. According to the rulebook, additional time is needed to accurately finish the amount of time that football is being played.

How Does This Affect Betting? 

• It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that games with longer durations have more goals because goals take much longer to achieve. There are a few fundamental ideas you should generally keep in mind when analyzing a football game.
• Every betting market relies on someone offering a price to bet at, and that price is frequently based on a model. The time left to play when placing a football wager is a component of that concept.
• To score a goal, any prices in the market must adapt for more time if you add more than that. As a result, the over/under market will change over a long period of additional time.
• The additional stoppage time has opened up a possibility in the market for match odds. There will be late goals if there is a lot of time left in the game.
• Very late goals have been scored thus far in a good number of World Cup games due to the new rules this year. That is a significant spike and wholly unanticipated. 

Several alternatives depend on how you might take advantage of this, but they all depend totally on the specific match and the score at the time. The idea is to back the over in most games due to the enormous additional minutes. 

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Video Assistant Referee (VAR)

The technology is being used for the second time at the Men’s World Cup. The first occurred in Russia in 2018. However, between World Cups, the Video Assistant Referee has participated in significant men’s professional soccer leagues and important FIFA competitions. The technology and its application are familiar and comfortable for the officials. 

When Is The VAR Used? 

Goals, penalty decisions, direct red-card events, and mistaken identity are match-changing circumstances when VAR will only be used for “clear and evident errors” or “severe missed incidents.”

• Goals: The VAR automatically examines any goal or no goal to see if any fouls would have prevented the goal from being scored, if there was any offside before the goal, or if there was a missed ball in or out of the field.
• Penalty judgments: Any potential fouls, whether called or not, are examined by the VAR concerning the tackle, offense, and foul location, whether inside or outside the penalty area.
• Straight Red Card: Red card challenges or possible red card challenges are automatically examined, whether they are given or not. There is no review of a second yellow card that changes to a red card.
• The Error of Identity: A card accidentally provided to the wrong person can be reviewed and changed.

The last World Cup saw a record 29 penalties awarded, but this one has only seen 16, which is a massive decrease from 2018’s World Cup held in Russia. Bettors should bet less on penalties as the VAR system has improved, which has decreased the number of awarded penalties. Bet more on no penalty awarded in a game. 

The World Cup is a prestigious tournament, but it is still far from perfect; referees still impact the game’s outcome, and their decisions cannot always be fair. That’s why it’s advisable for bettors to take the refereeing rules into consideration before betting. The VAR and the ridiculous added time in the tournament have been the standouts so far. 

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