First of two tickets to his grand final FIFA World Cup in Qatar tonight (21.00) will find the owner. Croatian as well as Argentina they will face each other at the Lusail Iconic, where in front of 80,000 spectators they will give their battle to the end to be at the biggest football meeting on the planet next Sunday.

On the one hand, Messi, at the last World Cup of his career, seems determined to lead Argentina to the Holy Grail. What he lost in the 2014 final against Germany in the stadiums of Brazil is a trophy he lacks to be in the minds of his compatriots in the same place as Diego Maradona.

On the other hand, for the next competition, the ageless Luka Modric took the Croats by the hand, taking them to the semi-finals for the second time in a row, after the Croats managed to reach the final in 2018.

Of course, Argentina is the favourite, but something similar happened a few days ago when Croatia played Brazil. But the Balkans are still in Qatar, Selesao are at home and are looking for a coach. As for Albiceleste, Acunas was eliminated by filling the cards in the episodic quarter-final against the Netherlands, while Montiel was also suspended. Di Maria will most likely not start, but will get more time than in the match against Oranje. The ideal scenario for Lionel Scaloni would be for Argentina to score first, but they have problems defending as they conceded 3 goals in the playoffs, all in an 80–90 minute period. Argentina coach called unfair criticism yesterday of his wards for the way they celebrated the victory over the Dutch. “I don’t agree that we don’t know how to win. There was just a lot of tension after such an important game, which was decided on penalties, ”he said characteristically, and when asked if Messi would be in the national team after the World Cup, he evaded answering, emphasizing that the main thing is today’s game. semi-final.

For Croatians, the recipe is simple. The goal, if they do not prevail in the 90th minute, is to go to the penalty shoot-out, where four qualifying matches are counted for the same number of matches in the final stages. Characteristically, since 2000, Croatia has played nine knockout games at the Euro and World Cups, and eight of them have gone to extra time. Croatia, which refused even its own coach, as Zlatko Dalic said it was impossible to repeat the 2018 course. “We are once again in the top four teams in the world. Now we must make the final effort. One more step to the final. I said that it would be impossible to complete the 2018 course, I hope I am wrong,” the Croatian coach emphasized.

• Mexico’s Tesar Ramos will officiate tomorrow’s semi-final between France and Morocco. At the moment, the 38-year-old referee has refereed the matches Denmark-Tunisia, Belgium-Morocco and Portugal-Switzerland.

Two reporters killed in Qatar

George Georgakopoulos

The curse that has taken the lives of many hundreds of workers in the World Cup host country now appears to be taking its toll on journalists as two reporters expired in Qatar within hours. The first was the famous American CBS journalist Grant Wall, who died on Saturday in Doha, and a few hours later, the Qatari photojournalist Khalid al-Mislam. Both deaths are due to unknown causes. Wall, who also worked for Sports Illustrated magazine and the Fox Sports network, wasn’t even… old. He just turned 48 years old. But he had an adventure in Qatar, as he was temporarily detained by the authorities for wearing a gay rights shirt, for which he criticized Qatar. His brother Eric reported that the American journalist had received threats against his life and stated that his brother had been killed.