Lionel Messi finally won Argentina the World Cup after a long 36-year gap. Winning a competition like the World Cup is the ultimate dream for any soccer player. The 35-year-old Argentinean has achieved the only jewel that was missing from his crown.
Billions of fans around the world turned up to watch the final of the 2022 World Cup with anticipation. And boy it delivered more than what was expected. Di Maria and Lionel Messi scored two times in the first half to sit comfortably in the lead. The match looked settled as the former World Champions didn’t turn up in the second half as well.
Kylian Mbappe turned the match around with absolute madness. Otamendi fouled Kolo Muani in the box for Mbappe to score the penalty. Inside less than a minute he scored another stellar goal to stamp France’s authority back. In the extra time, Mbappe scored another penalty to cancel out Messi’s second goal of the match to make it 3-3. However, Argentina ultimately won 4-2 on penalties after Coman and Tchouameni missed their penalties.
Argentina and Lionel Messi’s prize money from World Cup win revealed
Qatar 2022 is the latest version of the World Cup and has provided the biggest prize pool so far. The prize money is obviously based on how far a team has gone in the World Cup. The prize pool for this edition of the World Cup was a whopping $440 million.
The 32 qualifying teams got $1.5 million each even before the tournament started. 16 teams got eliminated in the group stages. Those eliminated teams got $9 million each as well. The teams which got knocked out in the round of 16 have won $13 million each. The likes of Brazil, Portugal who couldn’t go past the quarter-final stages, got $17 million for them. Croatia won the third-place clash to win $27 million and Morocco finished in fourth to win $25 million in prize money.
Argentina has won the 2022 FIFA World Cup 🏆
Their prize money: $42 million — the most in tournament history. pic.twitter.com/835ajki4TD
— Front Office Sports (@FOS) December 18, 2022
France and Argentina played the final match of the Qatar World Cup. France won $30 million for finishing second in the competition. Argentina as the eventual winner took $42 million home as their prize money. The prize money will be equally divided between Lionel Messi and his teammates.