andres cantor

If you didn't watch the 2022 World Cup final, you missed a historic event. I'm not even a soccer fan and I was sweating long before it was over. It was truly a riveting game.

First, a brief synopsis. At the end of regular time, France and Argentina were tied 2-2. After two harrowing 15-minute overtimes, they were still tied, at 3-3.

Only two other World Cup finals in history have still been tied after two overtimes, in 1994 and 2006. The game then came down to a penalty kick shootout, in which five players from each team faced off one-on-one with the goalkeepers. France missed two of their first four kicks, so when Argentina's Gonzalo Montiel successfully kicked the fourth goal, the Argentine team walked away the victors.

But there was more that made this game historic. France won the last World Cup in 2018, so if they triumphed this year, they'd be only the third team in history to win back-to-back titles. However, Argentina has Lionel Messi, who has played professional soccer for 18 years and has long been seen as one of the best players of all time but had never won a World Cup. In a career full of championship wins and records, the World Cup title was the only major soccer achievement he had yet to accomplish.

And, to make the match-up even more interesting, France's star player, Kylian Mbappé, is viewed as the next Lionel Messi, so there was the old guard versus new guard element to this game as well.