If this World Cup final had been scripted, it would’ve been too unbelievable to be true

It feels like it was written in the stars, but Messi was gonna have to earn it. It was almost like, look, the fairy tale is there, but you're not gonna just be handed it. So, you think you're gonna be handed it with ten minutes to go, five minutes or so to go. You think you're gonna be handed it and you're cruising. And all of a sudden Mbappe says no. If it had been a script, scriptwriters would've been like, "No, I mean, that can never happen."

Unbelievable. Unbelievable.

From Apple News and Meadowlark Media, I'm Brendan Hunt.

And I'm Rebecca Lowe. And this is the last "After the Whistle."

Reminder, there will be adult language.

The tournament is over, and a new king has been crowned. Finally, Leo Messi has lifted the World Cup as Argentina beat France in the 2022 World Cup final.

But that also means the World Cup has ended. And sadly, for the moment, so has this podcast. We'll recap the fun we've had as we embark on our last episode of "After the Whistle," baby!

Oh my God! Oh my God!

I mean, if ever a game lived up to the hype of two men, today was the day. And by the way, I've decided, looking at the faces of the fans, I don't think I ever want England to be in a World Cup final in my lifetime. It looks absolutely terrifying. And then it goes to actual time penalties. I think I kept saying to my husband, if that was us, I would be... it'll be over for me. I'd be out. I'd be down the road somewhere. I don't know, I couldn't do it. It's agonizing!

I had much of the same thought. I just can't imagine being put through that kind of wringer in a game where you actually care about the outcome as opposed to just wanting a good game. Even just wanting a good game, I was a wreck.

Absolutely. I don't even know where to start, Brendan. I did make notes. I'm not sure I even understand them.

Yeah. Me too, like the scribble, I mean, especially compared to my third-place game notes, which did not fill a page. I'm turning pages here in the old notebook. I guess we can try to start from the beginning, but I mean, unequivocally the best World Cup final of all time, right? I mean, I went back through the records a little bit. There's a few doozies in there. There's, you know, 30 and there's 54. Fifty-four was the last time someone came back from two goals down to win. There's the famous 66 of your people, and there's 86, but incredible. And then to make it to extra time, and then both teams score in extra time. My lord, my lord, it's incredible.

I know.

And that both goals were scored by the two guys who we've been seeing pictures of on either side of the trophy, as you so rightly predicted, the payoff of the hype was more than we deserved.

And you know what, Brendan, it feels like it was written in the stars, but Messi was gonna have to earn it. You know, it was almost like, look, the fairy tale is there, but you're not gonna just be handed it. So, you think you're gonna be handed it with ten minutes to go, five minutes or so to go. You think you're gonna be handed it and you're cruising. And all of a sudden Mbappe says no. And this script was... If it had been a script, scriptwriters would've been like, "No, I mean, that can never happen. So, let's just have another think, shall we?" It was like, you can win the World Cup, Messi. You can be the best of the best, but you're gonna have to take a huge test in order to do that. And that was what it was. It was like, you're so close and then you've gotta come back and then you've gotta score your penalty in the penalty shootout. It was the ultimate World Cup final and the ultimate game of, "Is he the greatest of all time?" And in those moments, if you are, you come through for your team. And he came through impeccably with every moment today.

Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Again, he always looks tired in World Cups, especially by the end and he went 120 minutes with no problem.

Okay, let's go. Beginning of the game. That feels about three days ago, but feel free to start.

I texted you early on 'cause I got in just as the entrances were starting. I've driven to the Chicago suburb of Libertyville to be at my sister's house. We're gonna do early Christmas here. And so we're watching the game together and suddenly Di Maria's in the starting lineup, and I'm like, "What?" Texted you about it, you were like, "Yeah, he passed fit," but what a half he had.

Master stroke.

Oh my lord.

Master stroke, Brendan. Absolute... It was like watching the Di Maria of Real Madrid nearly ten years ago. And, you know, having been witness to his years at Manchester United where he just wasn't the player that we knew that he could be, that today was the player. He was amazing. And then one of my favorite things about this whole World Cup, sorry, skipping to the end again, was the poor guy's emotions on the bench. I mean, he, back in 2014, never got on the field in the World Cup final. He had that thigh injury, I think it was, and he'd gone to the manager the morning of the World Cup final and he'd said, "I really wanna play. I can play. I know I've got a thigh pull, tear, strain, whatever, but I'm telling you I can play." And he burst into tears and the manager never put him on. And he said afterwards, I wonder whether that's because the manager thought I was nervous. So, I never got in the field. It was one of the worst days of my life 'cause of course they went on to lose that. So, to know that story, and then to see him on the bench towards the end, having played such a huge part in this game, and to see him on the bench at the end crying when they were winning. Then he started crying again when the three, three went in. And the poor guy... I just felt so sorry for him. He must just be the most spent of all spent humans right now.

Yeah. The one thing he probably doesn't mind is that for a while there, looked like he was the man of the match. You know, up until the 80th minute, it was like Angel Di Maria, you were the game changer. You subbed out in the 60th or so, but still it was all about him. And he will not mind losing out on that trophy. A quick word about Olivier Giroud. So, I'm here at my sister's house with my other sister and my brother-in-law and my partner Shannon. Now, my partner, Shannon, is now a football fan, but she got into football largely because I was able to tempt her with pictures of Olivier Giroud. Olivier Giroud was her gateway drug. She fell in love with Olivier Giroud. And at one point, this was the literal exchange from my partner Shannon, my sister Leah, and my thick Chicago accented brother-in-law, it was as they saw Giroud in close-up. "He's beautiful." "Oh, chiseled, French stud." "Prettiest man in soccer." So, Giroud, you didn't win today, but you got that going for you. The men of the Chicago suburbs still bow down in honor.

I love the way you wrote that down as part of your match report. Direct quotes from family on Giroud's looks, very important part of the World Cup final, I agree.

"Prettiest man in soccer," I thought was worth commemorating. But, you know, it hadn't been that eventful. But then like, almost immediately, boom! We got a penalty drawn by Di Maria, with intention. A very soft penalty, I dare say. But Messi buries it. And here we go.

What a wally to Dembele. I mean, what a wally. That foul on Di Maria, I mean, of wally-ish proportions that was, but yes, carry on. So here we go. That's the first big moment. One, nil.

Yeah. And then just 15 minutes later, a splendorous, sumptuous, seductive team goal sweeping one touch moves that lands at Di Maria to bury, fully announcing his presence on the pitch. It is now two, nothing, Argentina, after 36 minutes and France looked horrible. Absolutely horrible at this point.

They do, they do. So horrible that Didier Deschamps decides to make two changes, a double sub in the 40th, 41st minute. I can't tell you... if you are new to football, I cannot tell you how rare it is to make a sub in the first half. A single sub, right? Tactical, not injury. Tactical. Very rare. Mourinho does it occasionally, but even he only does it occasionally. To do a double sub in the first half, I'm struggling to remember a time I've ever seen that happen. I don't think I've ever seen that happen. And it was kind of an admission from Deschamps, "I got it wrong. I gotta change it now." And I loved it actually. I said to my husband, at the time, "I love this. It's brave, it's pragmatic. It's taking this game by the scruff of its neck and trying to rectify it with more than half the game to go." So, I was all in on these changes.

Me too. I mean, 'cause also it's the fucking World Cup final. Like, what are you waiting for? If you're down now, you make changes now, you know? These are the kind of changes that other coaches don't make that we get mad about. And both of these subs would pay dividends later on in the match. That being Thuram coming on and Kolo Muani coming on. And also, immediately, Thuram goes in with a hard tackle on Di Maria, which was the kind of thing Dembele was not doing on that side of the pitch. I think Stu Holden was even saying it at the time, and I think he was spot on. That was a real, like... okay, different game starting now.

Yeah, absolutely. But then in a funny way, that was that one moment. But then when the second half started, I really expected to see that different game continue. But there wasn't really much of an uptick or a reaction from France, was there? At the start of that second half. And by the way, shout out to Julian Alvarez, we are gonna see a lot more of him in a Manchester City shirt, which I'm really excited about. He was an absolute handful all day, the ultimate forward. He was brilliant. But at this point, early in the second half, subs weren't really doing anything. And I started to think, "Oh, I'm not sure taking Giroud off was a good idea. I'm not sure." You know, they've not gotten a target man. Here I am, you know, playing World Cup Manager. I'm not sure that was a good idea. Then Griezmann goes off. I'm like, "Okay, he's lost his mind." He's taken Griezmann off, he's taken Giroud off. What is going on? And then was the time that Argentina game management, terrible. The manager is not particularly experienced. Scaloni. Did you know that in 2016 he was managing a junior team in Mallorca?

I did not.

In Mallorca? A small island in the Mediterranean or the Balearics, not totally sure on my geography, but over there near Spain. And he is now today a World Cup winning manager. And at this point, he needed to get his team to slow the game down. It was two, nil. Their subs hadn't yet really done it. They'd taken a couple of their best players off. And Argentina weren't maybe going for it. They weren't fully going for a third goal, but they certainly weren't slowing the game down. And then what happened?

I mean, two things. Two things that I'm surprised we haven't mentioned so far in this podcast, that you've thrown us to. One is the handsomeness of Olivier Giroud. We've now covered that. And the other is the incredible Achilles' heel that is the presence of Nicolas Otamendi in a defensive four. The amount of times that he put Man City in the dock and then today gives up the penalty. Mbappe converts easily, it is game on. And then... minute later, Mbappe again. And by the way, the penalty drawn by Kolo Muani, who came on the 41st minute, and then the assist and the second goal was from Thuram, who come on with him. So well done, Didier Deschamps. And at that point... at that point, it's two to two and we think we're seeing an incredible game and we don't even know how much better it's gonna get.

Okay. Jumping in there for a quick, massive round of applause for the referee, who is a former player. He's from Poland. He played in the top flight of Poland. And I mean, you could just tell by his physique, I think it's fair to say that he was a former athlete, rather a substantial referee. Maybe more substantial than your normal referee. Anyway, I digress. He was, I think, brilliant because how about Thuram's dive? Well, I mean, was it a dive or was it just a little bit of a tri... It was a dive, yeah, it was a dive. But he saw it and in real time, I was like, "Oh, penalty," you know, of course you do. And for him to see that and give him a yellow, I just thought this referee... and I... This is my shoutout to ex pros. Please get involved in the game, please. Because this referee was magnificent. He knows the game. He's played at the top level. He was absolutely on top of everything, Brendan. I just personally think he added, actually, to this World Cup final. He never took away from it. He let the game flow. He didn't dish out yellow cards for wrong reasons. He got the right decisions. And if we could get more ex pros who played at the top of the game to be referees, I think we'd have a lot more great matches like that and fewer times when we're talking about the referee. Anyway, referee digression.

Well, spot on. I mean, 'cause... And the yellow card on Thuram was very brave. I mean, it's the 88th minute of the World final and it's two to two. And without hesitation, he went in and I thought at first blush, "Oh no, that is a clear penalty." The way he went down so hard, so fast. Like that has to have been a foul. And sure enough, it was not. And it was just a huge, huge call. And he got it spot on.

He did, Brendan. And now you're thinking this is already an amazing final and it's all set up for Messi to now score the winner with a screamer. And it was a screamer, but it was an even bigger screamer of a save from Hugo Lloris. My goodness. And for me, I turned around to my husband, I said, "That is the moment France are gonna win the World Cup. That save is gonna shift the momentum the other way. And now France are gonna win the World Cup." Just goes to show how much I know.

I mean, a great save by Lloris who almost oversaved it. He almost went past it. The ball was like swerving in such a way. It's indicative too of, like, at no point, even after France had scored two back to back, at no point did it feel like either team was out of it. There were constant salvos from both sides. They were both having strong attacks. It's just an incredible game. And that doesn't always even pay off in one goal, much less two in extra time. And yet here we are coming. So, at this point, Thuram's a menace, Kolo Muani is a menace at this point. Like just all of Deschamps's subs are coming in and being very, very effective. And now we go to extra time.

And that's when subs start to make a difference because then you're starting to think, well, hang on. The subs that Deschamps has made are all so attacking. He's got to now do half an hour with all these attackers on, which might be good for a penalty shootout, but he's gotta get to that first, or he's got to somehow win it while not letting Argentina catch them on the break. It was such an interesting 30 minutes and it was just a continuation of the greatness that we'd seen in the previous 90. So, I don't know what minute it was, but three, two, Messi. And I just thought, there it is. There, it's over. Is he the best? Yes, he is. Age 35 years, he was there to follow up on a rebound six, eight yards out, however far out he was. I mean, if that doesn't show greatness, goodness me, I don't know what does.

Shoutout to the semi-automatic offsides, which then showed a graphic in the build up to that goal demonstrating that I believe Messi was onside. But whatever attacking player it was had, like, a pinky that was offside, but a pinky doesn't count. And the defensive player had their back to the tournament. So, what it appeared to be, again, to quote my Chicago-accented brother-in-law, "They drew a line from his pinky to his ass." Which was great, which was great. This World Cup truly had everything. And after that, a handball from the player Montiel, who clearly is going to be the villain of the piece, with a blatant handball. And then here comes Mbappe again to reclaim the golden boot that Messi had just rested from him. And now it's three, three in the 117th minute. And at this point, what is going on? What are we watching?

I know, I know, I know. I'll tell you what is going on. We're seeing double greatness because, and I hate to say this, but I was just thinking, you know, sorry to bring it back to England and everything. But Harry Kane, who stepped up to take that second penalty against France, missed it and then Mbappe stepped up and I thought, "Is he gonna do a Kane or is he gonna show Kane how it's done?" And of course, he shows Kane how it's done, how to take two penalties in a game against the same goalkeeper. Oh my goodness, he is the coolest. I don't even think he sweated, by the way, on all the close-ups I saw. I mean, he only ever smiles and he definitely doesn't sweat. He's quite something, isn't he?

Yeah. And whatever switch he needs to click, it's a shame he didn't click earlier. It's a shame he didn't. You know, he waited until the 80th minute. A shame for France anyway. But, yeah, once he gets going, just a boulder coming down the hill, you cannot stop him. It was really, really a thing to behold.

And then I think, Brendan, the moment for me of the tournament, the save of the tournament, certainly, but maybe the moment of the tournament was... I've watched it back. I've watched it three times. The Emi Martinez save right there at the death. And I still don't know how he did it. He made himself so big, but it wasn't like it just came off him. He stuck his leg out for the ultimate kick save, as you guys say. His leg was like rod straight. It wasn't just kind of flo... It was extraterrestrial good. I mean, Emi Martinez won them the World Cup and then of course he then contributes to actually winning them the World Cup in the penalty shootout. But that moment for me, I think maybe was the most defining moment of this tournament.

It was incredible what this guy's been able to pull off, just the guts and chutzpah.

And then to crown it with that. It was also a bookend to Lloris's save of Messi earlier. Again, exemplifying just how both teams are having their moments back and forth. It's just incredible, incredible stuff. It was breathtaking. And then we still had PKs! Ay, yai, yai!

Ay, yai, yai. And I thought... I still thought, to be honest, Brendan, as much as I really wanted Leo Messi to win it, I still think Deschamps has been sort of sneaky good. He's been sneaky, clever with the subs. But they've been sneaky lucky actually, France, all tournament, in my humble opinion. And I thought, this is gonna happen again. They're just gonna be in, and Mbappe is gonna score, you know, the 17th penalty of his day. And I still thought France were gonna win it.

Yeah. At this point, I'm expecting the cruelty of football. 'Cause I think France winning at that point would've been cruel. To have gone up two, nothing and blown it would've been just ghastly. And that's what I expect out of football more often than not. So, everything was up in the air at this point. But still outside of that though, I gotta say, but going to the PKs, I mean, Emi Martinez is a shootout eating monster. He just loves them at this point. Ever since that Copa America, he just devours them. His eyes go wide, you know, because, "Oh, I finally get to do the thing where I crush dreams." And Lloris is standing there in his French composed manner, which of course, often works. But the contrast was stark.

It was. And the more I thought about it, the more I thought, like you were saying about Emi Martinez, I started to think, well, if they win this, it'll be down to him. And of course it was. So, Emi Martinez looking brilliant and of course, upsteps, what we talked about the other day, upsteps the two best players for their teams, because we talked about it with Neymar, who never got a chance to take a penalty. We said and you said it, Brendan, you said, "I think he was going for the glory," and I think he was waiting to be the fifth penalty taker, Neymar, so he could be the one that goes, "Yay, I got us through." Well, no such mucking around with these two superstars Mbappe and Messi out there, number ones, and that is the right thing to do. And they were flawless. But how do they do it? The pressure, my goodness. It makes me feel ill thinking about that walk up, how heavy your legs must feel walking up knowing there's over a billion people watching you taking a penalty in a penalty shootout of the World Cup final for your country. It makes me feel ill, I cannot get over the ice in the veins of these players.

Interesting contrasting in penalties between these two too, for what it's worth, like Mbappe's unstoppable, whereas Messi decided to do the sort of feint and fake Lloris out.

But then he kicked one so slow and so near center that Lloris, who guessed wrong, almost had time to recover and save the penalty, which would've been very bad. But Coman gets saved by Martinez, which you knew he was gonna save somebody. Dybala steps up and Dybala was in the Rashford and Sancho position of having been brought on at the very death of extra time, specifically to take a penalty. It was like, "Oh, I've seen this not work." But then he buries his. Then poor Tchouameni misses completely, perhaps due in part to Martinez's mind games that he loves so much. Paredes scores, Kolo Muani scores. And then Montiel, all he's gotta do is score to win the whole thing, but he's the dumb dumb who got the handball penalty that made it the three, three in the first place. And the villain becomes the hero. Montiel wins the whole thing for Argentina.

And we have a great recording of Argentine American broadcaster Andres Cantor calling that winning penalty kick for Telemundo. Let's hear that now.

Ledge. Absolute ledge of ledges.

I mean, whew. You're not supposed to show, are you, as broadcasters, who you support, but in that moment, I think it's fair to say, we were all right behind Andres Cantor and his tears and that was a magical moment that will be replayed forever and ever, Brendan.

Oh, there's a huge exception for that though. When it's international football and you are from that particular nation, I mean... I've talked about Jack van Gelder and the Dennis Bergkamp goal against Argentina in '98, just screaming Dennis Bergkamp's name over and over again. You don't need objectivity in the World Cup. Do your thing. And if anyone has earned the right to say whatever the fuck he wants, it is the great Andres Cantor. So that is delightful. And I'm sure there will be, you know...

There will be radio broadcasters whose calls we'll be hearing, and I want to hear every single one of them.

Some of the lines coming out of the pundits that were on the BBC coverage, you know, at the end, they were just absolutely stumped and stunned. Alan Shearer saying, "I've never seen anything like it, and I'll never see anything like it again." Rio Ferdinand calling it a fairy tale business. "We're in the fairy tale business right now." Pablo Zabaleta, of course, a former Argentina national team player in tears in the studio. I mean, this is why, Brendan, the World Cup and football in general is the special sport that it is. It's not a competition of what the best sport in the world is... but I mean, actually it is. And I think we know the answer to that because there is no other thing in the world that allows that kind of emotion, this kind of moment for this many people. It's just the best of the best. And that's the end of it.

I would say that the worst thing that the product that is the NFL could ever do, from a comparative standpoint, is to show a regular season NFL game after the greatest soccer match of all time. You're gonna make us watch the fucking Bears after this. And then some people are gonna do it, some people are like, "Oh, I'll watch the World Cup final and then I'll watch my local NFL team." And they will now see what happens when you've watched soccer for a long time and then you make the switch back to NFL, you start to see the cracks. You start to go, "Oh, wait a minute. There's only bursts of action after long stretches of nothing." And it's gonna look different today. The NFL will look different today, all across this country. You mark my words.

I agree. And I also think that it's a day like today that really moves this sport forward in the United States. And actually it was the perfect game, just before Christmas, cold in most places, a lot of people at home with an afternoon or a morning in your case to spare. And they're watching this game and there are hundreds of millions. And that in itself, that very spectacle will take the game forward at the perfect time with three and a half years to go until the United States can also put on, hopefully, a great display, just like we saw over the last few weeks. I think today was actually massive in the history of the game in the United States.

Yeah, I hope so too. And I really hope people keep a hold of that for the next three and a half years. I mean, some people are just already big soccer fans. Some are gonna become, like, introductory soccer fans but even those who never watch another soccer game again between now and 2026, they will never forget this. They'll never forget this at all. And to anyone who thinks like, well, the US just isn't good enough anyway, we're not gonna have a good World Cup in 2026. I direct your attention again to Morocco. Anything can happen four years later, anything at all.

So, Brendan, that was the game. Incredible. Then we saw, of course, the moment that Mbappe went up and picked up his Golden Boot with just the most classic face I've ever seen standing there for the cameras. Just, you know, that he's a winner. You know, he is an absolute winner. And to stand there as a loser today, but a winner of the Golden Boot, and having to be forced to be standing in that specific area of the stage, looking at the cameras, it was the last place he wanted to be. And then we saw the moment that pretty much every football fan around the world has wanted to see at some point in the last 20 years. And that was Messi getting the chance to hold that trophy in the air. And I turned to my son, who's six years old, and I said, "This moment you're about to see, you will still be talking about, and you will be telling people about when you are a hundred years old, because what we're about to see will be one of the greatest sporting images the world has ever seen."

And yet there was a twist, Rebecca, on that moment we're all seeing, as Messi was issued a black cloak called a bisht. And so the picture of him raising the World Cup is the, I believe, only picture of all time of the captain raising the World Cup trophy, where he's wearing anything but the colors, badge, and strip of his nation.

Why? Why do that, Qatar?

Why do that? The best thing Qatar could have done at this point of the end of stuff, is just to like back off and let the football be the football and just let the magic happen. And instead, there's a moment here of trying to claim Messi's moment. It was a really unfortunate asterisk on a glorious occasion.

You're absolutely right. And I think it really put Messi in a really difficult position, because if I'm Messi, I'm like, "Uh, no thanks." I just feel like they could have pushed back on that. I really feel like someone somewhere, if they'd known before the game, they should have had their separate FAs, football associations, to say this ain't happening. This ain't happening, and you can't force us because we're gonna reject it live on the stage. Because it really put him in a very difficult position. He couldn't have done it there and then. They should have organized that. But I mean, that was oh, such a shame. Just such a shame.

And after the flack he got from Mexican fans for, as many Mexican fans thought he had done, stomping on their shirt in the locker room, when in fact he was perhaps just moving it with his foot, I'm sure he was in no position to be like, "Uh, nope, I don't need this," less there be an international incident. But it's like it also now dovetails us back quickly into... for all the great football memories that the World Cup has provided, as the World Cup always does, no matter where it is, we will never forget the backdrop of this World Cup that it was in a nation that does not seem to care about its migrant workers, who reportedly died in the thousands to make this World Cup even happen. And ironically, today is International Migrants Day. Plus this is the country where homosexuality is illegal. This cannot be forgotten as part of the legacy of this World Cup, no matter how good the football was throughout, especially today. And so to punctuate it with Messi wearing a bisht in the trophy ceremony is a real last opportunity to remind ourselves of that. And another Qatari backfire.

Yeah, no, I couldn't agree more. Let's not give it any more seconds. Let's talk about, shall we, the... I think I said a couple of episodes ago when Argentina got into the final that everything felt right with the world. Well, this today, Messi winning a World Cup in his final game on the world stage in the blue and white stripes of Argentina is what is right about football. It felt right, it was right. I mean, just the pictures of him with his kids at the end and his family members and how they didn't show it at the time, the live footage. As soon as that whistle went, I was like, where's Messi? Someone get a shot of Messi please. Someone's gotta... where's the cameraman? Cameraman, get on Messi. They couldn't find him. They couldn't find him. Later on, they got the shot, certainly on the BBC here in the UK. They played in that shot. And what happened was when the whistle went, you saw Messi almost dropped to his knees, head in his hands. And then he was just surrounded and piled on by every single Argentina player. And to see him have that moment... Well, Brendan, you backed Argentina all the way, you're a massive Messi fan, you must also have felt in that moment just, yeah, that's what this is all about. And that's what we're here for.

Oh, boy. It's a coronation, first of all, of inarguably, I think now officially inarguably, the greatest footballer of all time. But we also may look back at this ten years from now, 20 years from now as a match between the two greatest footballers of all time. It was absolutely phenomenal and Messi winning this round felt right. Mbappe's already gotten his, everything except the Champions League. But...

I mean my... I know we've not only we watched it and now we've analyzed it, and I still am sitting here, like part of me is just comatose from sensory overload of not only the best World Cup final ever played, maybe the best football match ever played, maybe the best sporting event we've ever seen. Just incredible stuff. An incredible advertisement for the game and for what sport can be. Just the emotions, the drama. As you said before, you can't script it. It just has to play out. And sometimes there has to be magic involved, and there it all was, an absolutely perfect three hours.

Brendan, you can't overstate it. What you said is certainly not overstating it. I don't think it happens very often when you have two of the greats coming together who both have out of this world games. I can't remember a moment in life where that's happened before in any sporting world. It just almost can't happen. It's so rare. I mean, first of all, before Mbappe scored a hat trick today, the only other player to score a hat trick in a World Cup final was Geoff Hurst who tweeted about it saying, "I had a great run." But Mbappe got one, but of course Mbappe then to not lift the World Cup trophy, when you score a hat trick? I mean, life can be cruel, but where else in the world do we get a moment like today? And I think you are right, it certainly was the best World Cup final, and I think it was the best game I've ever seen.

Shoutout Carli Lloyd. We see you, Carli, don't you worry. We see you.

I guess just a few final thoughts here to send people back out into their World Cup-less world for the next three and a half years.

Oh, I know. I think it was maybe better than expected. I think it was more dramatic than we all thought. It feels like it's been going on forever. I mean, I remember talking to you right at the beginning of this, and that was, you know, just before Argentina lost to Saudi Arabia. I mean, that feels forever ago. The football has been brilliant. Of course, there've been storylines and a backdrop that we wish we hadn't had to have dealt with. But the footballers were always gonna deliver on the world stage because these are the best in the world. And it's one of those moments in life where you think, thank goodness for football, and thank goodness for the World Cup. Let's hope that FIFA move on with this and don't mess with it anymore in 2026. And don't worry football fans, because you've only got a few days and Christmas and then Boxing Day, the Premier League is back, so we're not too sad, Brendan.

Other bits and bobs. Oh, I have written here, "FIFA is a knob factory. And Infantino, its shiniest, shiniest product." Okay, what else?

Three and a half years till 2026. England in 2026. Optimist, pessimist. Go!

Don't you dare. If you want me to start about the fact that Gareth Southgate has just said he's staying for the next two years, I can totally do it, but I feel like, you know, we just haven't got the time today, Brendan. We just haven't got the time for another Rebecca on Gareth chat.

No, no, no. You've been through enough, but regardless of who the coaches are for the US and for England, the US, again, the team you saw this year that stirred our emotions so, both of these guys that will be on that team will be in their prime. These are the guys. They're already the guys. So, get on board. Rebecca, can we have a moment here of just some thanks.

Let's. I mean, absolutely. We've got a lot of people to thank.

We wanna thank everyone who has helped us put this pod together. We wanna thank our talent booker, Theresa Tran. From Meadowlark Media, we want to thank Bimal Kapadia. We also want to thank our researchers, Ethan Schreyer and Dan for their wonderful work behind the scenes. And a thanks to Will Raines who made our theme music. Our project manager, Julie McKinnis. Our producer, Carl Scott. From Apple, our sound designer, engineer, and mixer Casey Means. And our executive producers, Arwa Gunja and Ruby Edmondson. Thank you all so very much for having us. And most of all, I would like to thank you, Rebecca. This has been a privilege to talk about football with you for this month. Thank you for absorbing my comparative ignorance, which I disguise with enthusiasm. But you're a treat, you're a pip, you're a treasure. And I've appreciated this very much.

Oh, bless your heart, Brendan. Well, I echo all the thanks to the list of people there. It's been just such a joy to be part of this team. I've looked forward to it so much. I haven't laughed this much in a long time. And, Brendan, thank you as well. 'Cause to be your partner on this has just been nothing short of fabulous. It really, really has, so thank you. And also for everybody for listening to us over the course of the last month or so, we really appreciate every single person's rate, review, input, question. We've loved it all.

Yeah. Thank you to everybody. If you want 'round the clock coverage of your favorite Premier League Club or MLS Club, including stories, scores, and highlights, follow them in the new My Sports section in the Apple News app where available.

And while our ride with you all comes to an end, there are more great shows to check out from Apple News, including their daily news podcast, "Apple News Today" and their weekend interview show, "Apple News in Conversation."

And if you haven't yet, give this podcast feed a follow in Apple Podcasts. You can do that by going to the show page and tapping the plus sign in the upper right-hand corner. You'll be the first to know about anything coming to this feed in the future.

Brendan, thank you so much.

Thanks, Rebecca. And Grant Wahl, we love you, we miss you. Peace, everybody.