Football history remembers Pele as the only man who was the world champion three times. The legendary Brazilian won the World Cups in 1958, 1962 and 1970, and since 1930 and the first World Cup, only twenty footballers have won the biggest FIFA trophy two times. Thirteen were Pele’s teammates in his campaigns for the world crown and other Brazilians were Ronaldo and Kafu, and among them four Italians (Giuseppe Meazza, Giovanni Ferrari, Guido Massetti and Eraldo Moncello), as well as the Argentine Daniel Pasarella (1978 and 1986).Like father like son! There is something about Thurams and World Cup semisThis ‘League of extraordinary gentlemen’ could increase significantly on Sunday after the World Cup final in Qatar between Argentina and France because as many as nine Frenchmen are aiming for the second consecutive title of the world champion. If they destroy the dreams of the Argentines and Lionel Messi, Hugo Lloris, Benjamin Pavard, Raphael Varane, Antoine Griezmann, Olivier Giroud, Kylian Mbappe, Lucas Hernandez, Ousmane Dembele and Alphonse Areola, will be able to boast of having won two Golden Globes. Five of them will achieve this by playing standard in both championships.Mbappe, meet Messi! Messi, Mbappe! France edge Morocco to book Argentina in the finalHugo Lloris replaced Steve Mandanda in just one game in 2018, and even in Qatar, he did not have adequate competition between the goalposts since the best goalkeeper of Serie A, Milan’s Mike Magnan, did not travel due to injury. Raphael Varane played every minute in Russia, and in Qatar, after missing the premiere against Australia, he started every subsequent match. Antoine Griezmann played a masterful World Cup in 2018 and four years later, nothing has changed in that regard, except for the position, as Deschamps dropped him to the central part of the midfield and it turned out to be a winning combination.And the Golden ball goes to….Kylian Mbappe excelled in Russia at the age of 19, and with his games and performance in the Middle East, he opened an objective debate about whether in the next four or eight years he will remove Miroslav Klose from the top of the list of the best scorers in the history of the World Cup. If he is decorated with a second-world crown before the age of 24, he will have a good chance of chasing Pele’s unique football status. As for the veteran Giroud (36), he is currently the second scorer of the World Cup, after failing to make a single shot on target in Russia.Ambarat had to tell Giroud to stop chasing him all over the pitch during the semi-finalPavard, Hernandez, Dembele and Areola are players who didn’t play regularly in the last or this World Cup for various reasons but could end up with two trophies anyway. Pavard was a revelation of the World Cup in Russia and thus secured a transfer to Bayern Munich in the summer of 2019. In 2018, Lucas Hernandez was standard at left back and Deschamps’ plan was to repeat the scenario in Qatar. However, the injury already in the first game removed Lucas from the field until the end of the World Cup and opened a chance for his own brother Theo to show why he is known as the best left-back in Europe.##NAJAVA_MECA_6890959##Ousmane Dembele, who is standard in Doha, could also win another World Cup, while four years ago in Russia, after the group stage, he sat on the bench for the Round of 16 match against Argentina, the semi-final with Belgium and the final against Croatia, and only played two minutes in the quarter-final, against Uruguay. Finally, Alphonse Areola is on his way to becoming a two-time world champion despite not having played a single minute. On Sunday, we will find out if the goalkeeper of West Ham will one day be able to tell his grandchildren that he was a member of the team that conquered the planet twice in four years.
