World Cup 2022 reaction LIVE: Lionel Messi ‘to continue’ as Karim Benzema retires from France duty

France manager, Didier Deschamps, said he will meet with the French Football Federation in the new year before deciding on whether or not to continue managing the national team.

Les Bleus twice came from behind force the World Cup final into a penalty shootout with Kylian Mbappe bagging a brace in under two minutes to take the match to extra-time before completing a hat-trick to cancel out a supposed winner from Leo Messi.

Deschamps who has led France to consecutive World Cup finals as head coach says that he would have been reassessing his future regardless of the final result.

“Even if we had won, I wouldn’t have been able to answer that question tonight,” Deschamps said when asked about his future plans.

“Of course, I am very sad for all my players and staff but I will have a meeting with the president at the beginning of next year and then you will find out.”

The streets of Lionel Messi’s hometown of Rosario erupted in celebration on Sunday after Argentina football beat France football to win their third World Cup 2022 title.

“We’re champions, which is all we wanted, more than anything for (Messi) and for the whole team,” Santiago Ferraris, 25, said.

Rosario, just like the rest of the country, was paralysed during the nail-biting match that ended in a penalty shootout, which Argentina won 4-2.

Emiliano Martinez, world champion. That might have seemed far-fetched four years ago when he sat in the stands as just another Argentinian fan in Russia, watching France win 4-3 in an epic World Cup knockout game.

There Martinez had told his brother sitting next to him that he would be playing in the next World Cup. It was ambitious to say the least. He was then 25, a back-up at Getafe on his sixth loan from Arsenal; another followed at Reading where his status rose, before an unlikely opportunity opened at Arsenal when Bernd Leno suffered a freak injury.

By 2021 he was Argentina’s No 1 goalkeeper. Soon he was Copa America champion, his saves vital in denying Richarlison and others at the end of a tense final at Rio de Janeiro’s Maracana, the place where Lionel Messi and co had lost the World Cup final in 2014. Martinez was at the heart of their salvation.

It had looked as if France had failed to turn up when Argentina took a two-goal lead, but Les Bleus responded as Mbappe scored twice in two minutes before equalising again in extra time.

Given France were champions four years ago and that the outcome resulted in Messi winning the World Cup for the first time, the national newspapers instead reflected on the contribution they had played in making the final the greatest of all time.

That was the reaction from La Nacion in Argentina, with the media back home delirious after a third world title secured in Qatar following the absorbing final in Doha, which finished with a penalty shoot-out win over France.

The newspaper adds that Messi “touched the sky in Qatar” and that they and everybody associated with the Albiceleste went “through all the states of mind”.

“Campeones del Mundo” naturally proliferated many of the websites and front pages, while Olé used the play on words for ‘god’ in Spanish, hailing Messi with their headline reading: “Lios is Argentine”.

Argentina’s Messi finally got his hands on the trophy in his record 26th appearance at the tournament, but not before France’s Mbappe had become the first man to score a hat-trick in a World Cup final since Sir Geoff Hurst in 1966.

Messi’s seven goals took him to 13 in total, the most by an Argentina player and joint-fourth on the all-time list.

Mbappe, who celebrates his 24th birthday on Tuesday, is set to surpass him having netted eight times in Qatar to take his overall tally to 12 in 14 appearances.

The two number 10s were streets ahead of anyone else at the tournament, with Mbappe top-scoring and Messi adjudged to be the best player in what is set to be his final World Cup.

The Aston Villa keeper has won four successive shoot-outs with club and country, with his last defeat coming in 2019 when he was with Arsenal.

Argentina beat both the Netherlands and France on penalties to seal their World Cup triumph, with Martinez to the fore.

He saved from Virgil van Dijk and Steven Berghuis against the Dutch, marking the second save with a jig of delight, and also denied France’s Kingsley Coman.

Aurelien Tchouameni then fired wide – but only after having to retrieve the ball with a wry smile after Martinez flung it to the corner of the penalty area. The Argentina keeper went on to collect a yellow card in the shoot-out for his continued antics before Randal Kolo Muani’s successful attempt.

World Cup winner Lionel Messi is not ready to call time on his glittering international career just yet.

The 35-year-old led from the front with two goals in a thrilling 3-3 extra-time draw with France in Qatar on Sunday and then scored in the penalty shoot-out as Argentina lifted the trophy for the third time, but the first for him.

Messi had indicated during the build-up to the final that the game would be his last on the world stage, but speaking afterwards he told Argentinian TV station TyC Sports: “Obviously I wanted to cap my career with this and I can’t ask for anything more.”

It was the country’s third World Cup title, and the first since 1986.

“I’m very happy, we really deserved this. The team suffered quite a bit, but it recovered as time went on,” said Josefina Villalba, a 55-year-old nanny who joined hundreds of fans at one of the many public plazas where giant screens were set up to watch the long-awaited match.

Millions of Argentines cried, yelled and hugged as they followed the game, which was a rollercoaster of emotions.

“I feel an immense happiness in my heart because this is the first World Cup I truly enjoy,” Hector Quinteros, a 34-year-old security guard, said as his eyes welled up with tears. “This always happens. They always make us suffer.”

On a night of sensory overload, it was perhaps fitting that the last few scenes were almost as bright and loud as what had come before.

You heard the Argentina squad before you saw them, the thin walls of the mixed zone shuddering and falling over with their bangs and jumps.

It was more than three hours after Gonzalo Montiel had powered in his penalty and they finally came through, ostensibly to speak to media.

“It doesn’t matter what those whore journalists say, the whore that gave birth to them.”