Spain and Argentina swap praise as the World Cup final nears
On Friday the World Cup gave us no football and a lot of flattery. With the final two days off and the third-place game not until Saturday, Spain and Argentina spent the rest day at press conferences in Manhattan taking turns calling each other the best thing they had seen in years.
The mutual admiration society
At the Javits Center, Spain went first. Captain Rodri called Argentina and Messi “the toughest rival” you could draw in a final, and manager Luis de la Fuente saw “two super teams with a lot of similarities in behavior and in footballing talent.” Argentina answered in kind. Lionel Scaloni shrugged that “how could Spain not worry us? They’re a great team,” and Emiliano Martinez, not usually the diplomatic sort, settled for calling Spain “a great team” too. Somewhere a neutral is still waiting for someone to throw a punch.
Messi’s compliment with a sting in it
Between the two pressers, Messi turned up at a Fanatics event and did the thing only Messi can do: praise a rival while quietly filing him under problem for later. He called Lamine Yamal “a huge talent” and one of the game’s benchmark players at 19, then noted the teenager has a chance to do something historic on Sunday, “which we’ll try our hardest to make sure doesn’t happen this time.” Warm handshake, firm grip.
Nobody wants Saturday
Before any of that matters, France and England have the game footballers dread, the third-place playoff in Miami on Saturday. Neither camp is pretending otherwise. Thomas Tuchel admitted “none of our players and none of the French players want to play this match,” and Didier Deschamps, in charge of France for the last time after 14 years, said the disappointment was a fair match for the team’s ambitions. There is a Golden Boot subplot too: Kylian Mbappe and Messi are level on eight goals, with Messi ahead on assists, so Mbappe has a reason to care even if nobody else does.
Final: Spain vs Argentina, Sunday 19 July at MetLife Stadium.
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