Argentina vs France LIVE: World Cup final 2022 team news and line-ups as Lionel Messi faces Kylian Mbappe at Lusail Stadium

The showdown at the Lusail stadium can be Didier Deschamps’ third World Cup final after he gained it in 1998 as Les Bleus’ captain and then 4 years in the past as their coach.

He oozed calm on Saturday regardless of the stress of dealing with a team trying to give Lionel Messi his maiden World Cup title.

“I have no worries or stress. The important thing in preparing for a match like this is to remain calm,” stated Deschamps.

“In a World Cup final, there is the match, but also the context which is particular. But I know that the Argentinians, and maybe some French people too, would like to see Messi win the title.”

Martinez’s counterpart, France captain Hugo Lloris, believes the “adrenaline and excitement” of a World Cup final will guarantee all his team-mates are match to play, regardless of sickness having affected a number of members of Didier Deschamps’ squad.

Lloris stated: “We are going to try and do our best in spite of the circumstances.

“I think thanks to the adrenaline and the excitement we will feel we will all be fit enough and ready to do whatever we can to win this last battle.”

Argentina’s goalkeeper, Emiliano Martinez, says that his team will come into the sport stuffed with confidence and perception that they will win the World Cup and defined that having Lionel Messi – who he calls the best participant of all time – within the line-up is a large assist.

“People say France are favourites, but we have the advantage of having the greatest player of all time [Messi],” stated Martinez.

“We always like to hear the opponent is the favourite because we don’t feel superior or inferior to anyone but, as I always say, we have the greatest player of all time.

“And with a good defence, we have many chances to reach our goal.”

Lionel Messi has been on this planet for 35 years, five months and 24 days, and for most of that time he has dreamt of winning the World Cup. But at around 8pm on Sunday in Lusail he will stop dreaming; whether Messi joins Pele and Diego Maradona among the pantheon of legendary World Cup winners will be known, and it will never be rewritten.

From then on he will either be the man who won the World Cup or the man who didn’t, one match defining a career already packed full of historic moments, and the strange part is there’s only so much he can do about it. Messi will have the ball at his feet for about 60-90 seconds over the course of the final, and the reality is that many of the finer details of the most important game of his life will be beyond his control.

France’s Raphael Varane, Ibrahima Konate and Kingsley Coman, who missed training on Friday with a virus, were present at the start of Saturday’s session on the eve of the World Cup final clash against Argentina.

The three players started the session, which was open to the media in the first 15 minutes.

Midfielder Aurelien Tchouameni and left back Theo Hernandez, who also missed training on Friday because of knocks to heir hip and knee respectively, were also on the pitch with the rest of the squad.

France’s preparations for the World Cup final have taken a hit due to a sickness bug making its way through their camp.

Midfielder Adrien Rabiot, defender Dayot Upamecano and winger Kingsley Coman all missed the semi-final versus Morocco after struggling wto shake the illness.

“We’ve had a few cases of flu-like symptoms,” said head coach Didier Deschamps. “We’re trying to be careful so it doesn’t spread and players have made great efforts out on the pitch and obviously their immune systems suffer.

“We’re taking all necessary precautions, trying to make sure it doesn’t spread but we have had to take precautions against it.”

It is 88 years since an African team first entered the World Cup and Walid Regragui had sailed into territory none of the previous 48 had ever charted. And yet, when it was put to the Morocco manager that Africa’s maiden semi-finalists are his continent’s greatest ever team, he demurred. Not yet, said the ever demanding Regragui.

Instead this most ambitious of managers has a new aim. Morocco had played three World Cup matches in the 21^st century before he led them into seven. They have not won the African Cup of Nations since 1976, the year after Regragui’s birth. That is his new target.

“I think we are one of the best African generations because we reached the semi-final but I said to the players, if you want to go down in history, you have to win the African Cup of Nations,” he stated. “If we can do that then we will show we are the best generation. Before being king of the world, you need to be king in your own country so we need to dominate our continent.”

Messi vs Mbappe sees immoral World Cup set for an immortal conclusion

Ahead of a fixture of such a scale that it can overcome most players, a figure as experienced as Didier Deschamps knows exactly what he needs to tell his squad. He’s been here before, after all, as a captain and then as the victorious manager in the last World Cup. Deschamps may have all the composure that comes with potentially being just the second coach in history to retain the trophy, but he is well aware that some players start to feel an anxious energy they can’t contain, with the knowledge that every individual could go down in history – for good or bad – infusing every moment.

As such, he of course tells the players to keep it simple. Individual roles are reduced to the most memorable missives. There is one common instruction, though.

“Get it to Kylian as soon as you can.”

That simple command for once has more complicated dimensions, since Kylian Mbappe is not the main gravitational force on this match. France cannot just leave the opposition to compromise their own play for their star. That is because there is a bigger star, a bigger gravitational force.

Lionel Messi has probably dominated the build-up to World Cup 2022 final more than any player has ever dominated any match in history.

It is as if it’s been scripted. Messi’s career might be building up to the greatest glory right at the end, after so much anguish, in what would be the perfect storyline.

Argentina vs France big match preview by Miguel Delaney

Scaloni on Messi: “Let’s hope that if it’s Leo’s last game, that we can win the title. It would be great and the important thing is to enjoy it… What better scenario than in a World Cup final.”

Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni kept his cards close to his chest when quizzed about his likely line-up to face holders France in the World Cup final.

“We already decided the strategy and we will play in a way in which we think we can hurt our rivals the most and suffer the least,” Scaloni told a news conference.

“We have our gameplan, we know how to play them and now we just have to execute, and I hope we can play a similar game as we did against the Netherlands in the quarter-finals – but win the match without having to go through the pain of a penalty shoot-out.”

“To stop Mbappe you need a collective effort. But France is more than just Mbappe. We need to focus on making a good game collectively,” Scaloni said.

“Sunday’s game is much more than Lionel Messi against Mbappe, it’s Argentina against France, it goes beyond that.

“We both have the necessary weapons so that the game can be decided by other players and not necessarily the two of them. Let’s hope it falls on our side, but there are plenty of players who can decide the game.”