Messi and Yamal set for a full-circle World Cup final

On Thursday the World Cup went quiet. No matches, just the long exhale between the semifinals and Sunday’s final at MetLife Stadium. And the build-up needed no help: Spain against Argentina, a 39-year-old Lionel Messi against a 19-year-old Lamine Yamal, and a photograph from 2007 doing the rounds all over again.

The photo that won’t stay in the archive

Back in 2007, a barely-there Yamal was bathed by a young Messi for a charity shoot in Barcelona. Yamal, who turned 19 on Monday, has spent this tournament making the point that he is not a mascot anymore. Now the two of them meet on the biggest stage there is. Messi, 39 and reportedly on course for the Golden Boot with eight goals, spent Wednesday’s semifinal pulling strings, two assists to send Argentina past England. Football does not usually hand you an ending this tidy.

Holders, and somehow the underdogs

Argentina arrive as reigning champions chasing something nobody has managed in over 60 years: back-to-back World Cups. Brazil were the last to pull it off, in 1958 and 1962. And yet the holders walk in as the underdogs. Spain, the European champions and the most complete team of the tournament, are most people’s favourites, with Yamal the teenager everyone wants to watch. Reports also note it is the first final to put the reigning European champions against the reigning Copa América winners, which is a mouthful and also true.

The legs, not the treatment table

If there is a worry in the Argentina camp, it is fitness of a different kind. Lionel Scaloni’s problem is fatigue rather than injury: Leandro Paredes was hauled off on 64 minutes against England, and a side that keeps winning from behind keeps spending energy it might want back on Sunday. Spain, fresher and with Nico Williams fit again, do not carry that. Before any of it, France and England get the game nobody enters willingly, the third-place playoff in Miami on Saturday.

Final: Spain vs Argentina, Sunday 19 July at MetLife Stadium.

See how the bracket finished and who the model favours on the live table.

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