A penalty to divide them all. Argentina took advantage in the long-awaited World Cup final due to an action inside the area that will fill pages and hours of discussion, on the street and on television. Did Ousmane Dembélé take a penalty on Ángel Di María? Was the contact of the French footballer enough to stumble the Argentine attacker?
The debate is open for not being flagrant. Also for the fact of not decanting a final. The Argentines will have it very clear. The French will see the image repeated millions of times and will continue, outraged, without seeing anything punishable. The one who did see it and had no doubts was the Pole Szymon Marciniak.
It was running in the 33rd minute at the Lusail stadium when Ángel Di María received a ball to the left, controlled it and got into the area. Dembélé was the defensive coverage. He stuck to the winger so much that, in pursuit, he inadvertently struck the Juventus player's elevated left foot with his right leg, forcing him to stumble as Di Maria hit his own legs.
Neither from the VAR did the main referee, Tomasz Kwiatkowski, give his compatriot any instructions to review the play. "It's a covert trip. When you run behind someone very close to him, the person in front will most likely trip over the legs of the person who runs very close behind you. It's very silly, but it's a penalty." commented the former referee Eduardo Iturralde González to this newspaper.
Dembélé's face of incomprehension, who would end up substituted before the end of the first half, was total. He didn't know where to go. Then came the turn of his ex-partner at Barça. How could it be otherwise, Leo Messi assumed the responsibility of launching from eleven meters.
The penalty spot is an area that has caused trauma on more than one occasion in his career. Remembered in a Blaugrana key is the missed against Chelsea in the 2012 Champions League semifinals, in Guardiola's last season. The Argentines keep in mind the mistake in the 2016 Copa América final against Chile (the last important one, although of another level, is the one that botched against Real Madrid the previous year, already with PSG). But this time it would end inside. In the most important game of his life he could not fail. With great coldness he deceived Lloris.
Messi was for a few minutes the top scorer in the World Cup until Kylian Mbappé woke up. With the goal against the French, he adds a total of six; four from penalties of the six that he has taken in Qatar -one was saved by Wojciech Szczesny, the other was converted in the quarterfinal against the Netherlands-.
The five penalties in regulation time is a record in World Cup history. No other team had scored so many in the same tournament. Argentina, with Messi as a fist, struck first.
